I’m of the not-particularly-controversial opinion that the various Twlight movies aren’t very good. But there’s something to be said for how much actors Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have actually shown how good they are at acting. Stewart for her part went the indie route and carved out a nice niche for herself. Pattinson, meanwhile, actually seems to have gone with the weirdest roles possible. It says something when the most normal role he’s had recently seems to be Batman. So yeah, something like High Life seems to be right up his very bizarre alley. Regardless, good for him and Stewart.
I don’t know what Taylor Lautner’s excuse is.
Told in a nonlinear manner, the movie is about Monte (Pattinson), a prisoner on a space station near a black hole. When the movie starts, he’s alone up there save for his infant daughter Willow. The rest of the crew are all dead. He has to file a report of some kind every 24 hours to keep the life support running while trying his best to keep the baby happy and healthy. Monte actually is a convicted killer as he had, years earlier, murdered a friend for killing his dog. But what is he doing out there? How did he get there? Why is he there alone with a baby?
That is all more or less answered in various flashbacks. Monte is the last survivor from a group of prisoners who were part of two experiments. One was to see if they could harness energy of some kind from the black hole. The other was to see if it was possible to use artificial insemination to bring a baby into the world. Clearly, the second one paid off, but everyone involved in the experiment, including the doctor involved (Juliette Binoche), are in prison for a reason. Regardless, the experiment requires the prisoners not engage in sexual activity outside of a room called “the Box” which is a machine that apparently is really good at masturbation. Monte alone decides to be a celibate, and his only real friend is another prisoner (Andre Benjamin) who loves to work in the station’s garden. However, as time passes, the other prisoners start to crack in various ways, either attacking themselves or others, until only Monte is left, and thanks to the doctor’s actions, the baby Willow is actually Monte’s biological daughter. Can he keep going at least for Willow’s sake?
Co-writer/director Claire Denis’s movie is, well, odd. Much of the movie focuses on how the other members of the crew started cracking in different ways. Perhaps putting a bunch of violent felons in a confined space in the middle of nowhere was not the best of ideas, and keeping them from having sex probably isn’t going to be doing anyone any favors. Monte, as a character, is clearly made of stronger stuff than the others. Maybe it’s because of Willow, or it could be that a man who could just give up even self-pleasure is made of mentally stronger stuff than the others. That Willow, as she ages, seems to be somewhat well-adjusted says a lot about her and Monte’s parenting in many ways.
That said, this isn’t a happy movie. If the experiment done to the humans wasn’t bad enough, a second ship comes by late in the movie on a different experiment, the passengers being made up entirely of stray dogs who clearly have no idea what’s going on. Given Monte went to prison after avenging a dog, his reaction to the dogs says a lot about what he went through in his many years on the station. The movie ends with a sign that may be hope or may be surrender, but really, this isn’t Star Wars. Instead, it’s a meditation on human nature, cruelty, and loneliness, and what a person might have to do to keep himself and his loved ones alive in very trying circumstances.
Grade: B+
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