High Life, dir. Claire Denis, France / Germany / United Kingdom / Poland / USA 2019, 113 min., English
French auteur Claire Denis’ English-language debut sees a group of death-row inmates assigned to a doomed space mission with the belief they will be freed if successful. Medicated into subservience and subjected to sadistic experiments by the ship’s doctor, the crew struggle to survive as one among them miraculously produces a child.
Written by Denis and her longtime screenwriter, Jean-Pol Fargeau, High Life is a haunting and primal film about love and intimacy, suffused with anguished memories of a lost Earth.
no. 236848.