France, Germany, USA, Poland, UK
Synopsis
Director's Statement
Above all, and I must insist, HIGH LIFE is not a science fiction film even if there are healthy doses of fiction - and science thanks to the precious participation of the astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, specialist in astroparticle physics and black holes. The film takes place in space but it’s very grounded.
men and women without a past
We made a point of not “over-fictionalising” the characters: they have all probably committed terrible crimes, but we don’t pursue it. Their history, collective or individual, takes place in the present and – who knows? – in the future, even if for most of them the future will take the form of a cemetery under the stars. I see them all as a contemporary community, utopians, hippies of a special sort, who have gone from juvenile detention centres to prisons and who do not want to live in any society other than their own.
set design
My instructions were very simple. It is a prison, a sort of squat house, drab, dirty, poorly lit. There is a main corridor and cells on both sides. On the floor below are a medical lab, a morgue and a greenhouse garden. I was dead set on having that garden. How can you keep up the hope of return if earth isn’t part of the voyage? That earth is their Earth, the only thing that reminds them that they are earthlings, men and women of the earth. In fact I wanted to avoid the hell of special effects. The same goes for weightlessness. There is no need for weightlessness because the spaceship is accelerating close to the speed of light. Terrestrial gravity – gravity in every sense of the word – re-establishes itself, because gravity is the effect of acceleration. If I had to film actors hanging from cables against a green screen, I’d never have made the movie. And with it’s near absence of special effects. I hope the film will still have a special effect on viewers.
Director's Biography
In 1987, Claire Denis wrote and directed her first film, CHOCOLAT. A semi-autobiographical story of racial tension in the colonial Africa of the 1950s at the moment of independence, the film premiered In Competition at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, was nominated at the César Awards and met with widespread critical acclaim in the US.
Filmography:
2018 - HIGH LIFE
2017 - BRIGHT SUNSHINE IN
2013 - BASTARDS
2010 - WHITE MATERIAL
2008 - 35 SHOTS OF RUM
2005 - THE INTRUDER
2002 - FRIDAY NIGHT
2001 - TROUBLE EVERY DAY
1999 - BEAU TRAVAIL
1996 - NÉNETTE AND BONI
1995 - A PROPOS DE NICE
1994 - U.S. GO HOME
1993 - I CAN’T SLEEP
1990 - NO FEAR, NO DIE
1989 - MAN NO RUN
1988 - CHOCOLAT
Cast & Crew
Directed by: Claire Denis
Written by: Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Geoff Cox
Produced by: Olivier Thery Lapiney, Oliver Dungey, Klaudia Smieja, D.J. Gugenheim, Claudia Steffen, Christoph Friedel, Laurence Clerc
Cinematography: Yorick le Saux
Editing: Guy Lecorne
Production Design: Francois-Renaud Labarthe
Costume Design: Judy Shrewsbury
Make-Up & Hair: Marcin Rodak
Original Score: Stuart Staples
Sound: Stuart Staples
Cast: Claire Tran (Mink), Robert Pattinson (Monte), Juliette Binoche (Dibs), André Benjamin (Tcherny), Mia Goth (Boyse), Lars Eidinger (Chandra)
Nominations and Awards
- Feature Film Selection 2019