Like many reviewers, I do pay attention to what is written
by others, prior to watching a film. In this case, that was a good idea. I have
rarely seen a film (at least on Amazon Video) that had such strong negative,
and positive reviews. I do have to say, after watching this gritty "sci
fi" film from French filmmaker Claire Denis, I side with those who liked
it.
Now, I say that, agreeing somewhat with the idea that one
has to take (some) French filmmakers with a grain of art-for-art's-sake salt.
On the other hand, I don't agree that one is a Philistine if one doesn't like
this film, doesn't care for Denis or French film in general. It is nothing, if
not an acquired taste.
Make no mistake, "High Life" is hard to watch.
Much is implied in its 'fractured time' narrative structure where flashbacks to
previous occurrences take up progressively more and more of the real time
present of the film, but much is also not clear. What is implied is that the
interstellar spaceship carries a group of hardened criminals from Earth, and
that strange experiments are being conducted on them, in space, by a cooly evil
and sexually starved "Doctor," played effectively by Juliette
Binoche. What is not clear is why these experiments are being conducted, what
happened on Earth. Well, a lot is not clear.
And therein lies the rub, as the Bard would say. If you like
ambiguity you will love "High Life", If you want your narratives,
plot, characters, etc. straightforward, you probably won't. This film, for some
reason, reminded me of Nicholas Roeg's "Eureka" in its relative
impenetrability. Or perhaps Roeg's "Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession"
in its deconstruction of Human Sexuality. Roeg has been vilified by critics and
divided audiences in a similar manner that here Denis' film does.
And the debate about whether this is really a Sci Fi film is
rather hilarious. Many Sci Fi fans reserve the right to decide what is, and
what is not Sci Fi, while others agree that there are many differing types of
the genre called Sci Fi. I think, in some respects, Denis is having us on, as
the brits say, by using the Sci Fi form as a way to tell a larger, more
difficult-to-palate story than most Sci Fi attempts to do.
The main narrative arc (pun intended) of “High Life” is a
spaceship hurtling toward a Black Hole, and the ultimate experiment being some
passengers taking the ship’s landing craft to try to cross the Event Horizon to
determine whether it is possible to survive such a journey. Denis uses that
through line, if you will, as a kind of laundry line upon which she hangs the
more meaningful questions posed in High-Life. For example, if we could, would
we send convicted prisoners into outer space and conduct experiments on the,?
If we did that, would they survive, and more importantly, what would happen to
their sexual appetite and drive?
Perhaps most importantly, if they had children, what would
those children be like, and what would happen to them? While High-Life doesn’t
answer these questions, it poses them in a film whose no-frills technique – the
SFX remind me of 1970s era greats, like The Black Hole and Silent Running –
succeeds despite itself.
You might like it, or you might not. You won’t know until
you try.
