************************This review contains spoilers****************************
Guilt is one of the more devastating emotions that humans can feel, one that can linger and fester over long periods of time and affect every level of our well-being and existence. As any parent of a toddler that has done something that the child knows is forbidden can attest to, the presence of a guilty conscience is hard for human beings to live with and hide from our earliest stages of development. Even if others are not aware of your transgressions, your own knowledge of their existence can weigh you down and wear on your spirit. Solitude and being alone with one’s thoughts can exacerbate feelings of guilt, particularly for prison populations. High Life is a sci-fi mystery that explores this concept.
The first English language film from legendary French director and writer Claire Denis, High Life follows a group of prisoners, chief among them Monte (Robert Pattinson) who have been sent in a resource efficient spaceship headed toward a black hole on a mission to test the ability to harness its energy. Fellow prisoner and ship medic Dr. Dibs (Juliette Binoche) has made it her mission to test the ability of humans to conceive in outer space, using the other crew members Boyse (Mia Goth), Tcherny (André Benjamin), Ettore (Ewan Mitchell), Chandra (Lars Edinger), Nansen (Agata Buzek), Mink (Claire Tran), and Elektra (Gloria Obianyo) to conduct her experiment. As the crew hurdles toward their destination, we explore the effects that confinement has on the human psyche.
The first thing that struck me about High Life was its visual depiction of space. Indeed, director Claire Denis took care to imbue the film with a plethora of visuals that accentuated the story at the center of High Life and complemented its non-linear storytelling, focusing her camera ever so often on a shoe here or a scar on a character’s body that would later reward attentive viewers with an explanation about the character’s backstory or fate. Her depiction of space in its real-life state however, its desolation and nothingness, sticks out in the midst of the multitude of space adventure blockbusters that depict the usual pitch black and silent environment as full of light and explosions that can be heard from miles away. This attention to detail in showing how space really feels, looks, and sounds was a welcome bit of realism from what we’re usually treated to in cinemas.
Indeed, the stillness of space as shown in High Life is an apt metaphor for the stillness and isolation one feels when alone with their guilt and the thoughts and emotions that accompany it, particularly for incarcerated persons, which serves as the theme of the film. With criminality being the tie that binds together the crew selected for this mission, each person onboard the ship carries with them the knowledge that what led them to a place where they have left behind the only world they’ve ever known for desolation cloaked in mystery are their own grave misdeeds. Carrying such guilt is already a heavy burden to maintain for any human being, but doing so while closely contained with strangers headed to an all but certain death results in heavy emotional trauma. Boyse and Ettore are the most obvious examples of this psychological phenomenon, constantly lashing out toward others (and in Boyse’s case herself, eventually) with violence, undoubtedly rooted in frustration at their own circumstances. As the plot within the film develops, we find that Dr. Dibs’s obsession with procreation likely is a result of what landed her in prison in the first place; the murder she committed of her own children and husband. While Dr. Dibs frames her compulsion to create life aboard the ship by any means necessary as a mere scientific curiosity, it becomes clear that for her, achieving this milestone would also serve as a form of atonement and recompense for her own children whose lives she extinguished.
The environment of the ship leaves all of the crew alone with their thoughts and the solitude results in changes of all their mindsets, with some turning violent and others contemplative. All of us can relate to being alone with ourselves and the resulting introspection, something that can result in ideas that power us toward reaching the stars (e.g. “I do my best thinking at night in bed!”) or wrecking our brains to the point that any light within becomes consumed by a black hole of anxiety and regret. Guilt can be all-consuming or can fuel us to achieve wonders in our quest to make up for the things we’ve done wrong and repay those who were on the receiving end. But there is a difference between guilt and shame and studies have shown that this subtle distinction has far-reaching effects on prisoner behavior and recidivism. Prisoner who feel guilty are less likely to re-offend and re-enter the prison system while those who feel shame often end up back in prison. The difference between the two is best depicted in High Life by Monte and Dr. Dibs. While Monte uses his time in the ship helping others and trying his best to finish the mission and raise the child he sired with Boyse through Dr. Dibs’ forced procreation efforts, Dr. Dibs wrecked havoc on her fellow prisoners, going as far as raping Monte in order to procure his sperm, in an attempt to atone for her shame of killing her own children. The defensiveness and resulting aggression from shame differs from the reparative nature of guilt. High Life does the distinction between the two justice through its story.
High Life is a film that moves at a glacier’s pace and while it does hamper the level of enjoyment it is able to attain, Claire Denis is able to provide enough intrigue within the story and direct it in such a way that the slow unveiling of just what has gone on aboard the ship manages to keep you engrossed in following along anyway in order to reach the payoff of the outcome through well-executed non-linear storytelling. Denis and director of photography Yorick Le Saux push the limits of their budget to present a version of outer space that is both exceedingly realistic and beautiful to observe. The film’s score also accentuates the images onscreen perfectly, being just subtle enough to blend into the quiet, meditative film but noticeable enough when it needs to be in order to elevate what we’re shown. Robert Pattinson turns in another high caliber performance as Monte, complimented by Juliette Binoche’s weird and intense turns as the haunted Dr. Dibs. While this art house take on sci-fi may not be for everyone, there’s enough intrigue within the film to make it a worthwhile watch.
Image: A24
