Watching 'High Life' was like traipsing through a post-modern art exhibit. You know the type of thing. Long black corridors lit with neon strip lights, illuminating grainy images of naked people masturbating with fruit. The kind of art that illicits raised eyebrows, wrinkled noses and puzzled tilts of the head before you shuffle off to the next monstrosity.
I'm a sucker for cool visuals, and the unusual premise about death row inmates who agree to take part in a space mission in exchange for their lives had, I thought, potential. Unfortunately there was precious little else to absorb from the full 110 minutes that we don't already see in the 2 minute trailer.
Aside from some haunting, austere visuals and a tense, oppressive atmosphere, there is absolutely nothing to engage with. The plot is little more than a loose thread from which the director hangs a series of vague and 'provocative' brain farts about human sexual impulse, violence and reproduction. The catalytic character in all of this is Juliette Binoche's Dibs, an over-sexed scientist who seems bafflingly preoccupied with harvesting the semen of the male crew members and inseminating one of the younger females to achieve a perfect viable fetus. Why, is never clear. We don't know if this was a mission given to her by the space program, or a twisted personal obsession. It does, however, set up some bizarre, grotesque set pieces involving sleep rape and a turkey baster.
Another conceit in all of this nonsense, is that none of the crew are permitted to have sex with one another and must instead relieve their frustrations in a specialized masturbation chamber, introduced with an indulgent scene of Dibs riding a mechanical dildo while ominous synth chords rumble in the background. It feels so incongruous and artificial that it becomes impossible to take any of it seriously and whatever subtext or ideas Claire Denis was attempting to provoke were lost on me.
The editing doesn't aid comprehension. Events are revealed in fragments, hopping fitfully between past and present with no clear visual cues to signal change of time.
All the characters aboard the doomed vessel, with the exception of a sweet cuddly baby, are soulless robots with no likable traits and no real arc. The dialogue is sparse and weirdly obtuse. Binoche sometimes sounds like she doesn't quite understand the words that are coming out of her mouth. In one scene she casually boasts about her crime to the other inmates, in another she's crying about it. It makes no sense.
There is no structure, no climax, no resolution, just a vain concept that goes nowhere.
I'm a sucker for cool visuals, and the unusual premise about death row inmates who agree to take part in a space mission in exchange for their lives had, I thought, potential. Unfortunately there was precious little else to absorb from the full 110 minutes that we don't already see in the 2 minute trailer.
Aside from some haunting, austere visuals and a tense, oppressive atmosphere, there is absolutely nothing to engage with. The plot is little more than a loose thread from which the director hangs a series of vague and 'provocative' brain farts about human sexual impulse, violence and reproduction. The catalytic character in all of this is Juliette Binoche's Dibs, an over-sexed scientist who seems bafflingly preoccupied with harvesting the semen of the male crew members and inseminating one of the younger females to achieve a perfect viable fetus. Why, is never clear. We don't know if this was a mission given to her by the space program, or a twisted personal obsession. It does, however, set up some bizarre, grotesque set pieces involving sleep rape and a turkey baster.
Another conceit in all of this nonsense, is that none of the crew are permitted to have sex with one another and must instead relieve their frustrations in a specialized masturbation chamber, introduced with an indulgent scene of Dibs riding a mechanical dildo while ominous synth chords rumble in the background. It feels so incongruous and artificial that it becomes impossible to take any of it seriously and whatever subtext or ideas Claire Denis was attempting to provoke were lost on me.
The editing doesn't aid comprehension. Events are revealed in fragments, hopping fitfully between past and present with no clear visual cues to signal change of time.
All the characters aboard the doomed vessel, with the exception of a sweet cuddly baby, are soulless robots with no likable traits and no real arc. The dialogue is sparse and weirdly obtuse. Binoche sometimes sounds like she doesn't quite understand the words that are coming out of her mouth. In one scene she casually boasts about her crime to the other inmates, in another she's crying about it. It makes no sense.
There is no structure, no climax, no resolution, just a vain concept that goes nowhere.