Film School Rejects recommendation for Robert Pattinson #HighLife is “Don’t sleep on this one”
Quite a few people are making sure #HighLife is on their “Must See” lists at TIFF this year and here’s why:
High Life (Ger-Fr-Pol-UK-US) – dir. Claire Denis
High Life may be set in space, but with mercurial French creator Denis at the helm, it will not be science fiction as we know it. Robert Pattinson plays a man living in isolation in space with his daughter (Mia Goth). The cast includes Juliette Binoche, Lars Eidinger and André Benjamin (aka OutKast’s Andre 3000), with visual input from feted Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. Production companies include Alcatraz Films, Pandora Filmproduktion and the UK’s The Apocalypse Films.
Huffington Post (Canada):
“Thirty years into her filmmaking career, Claire Denis is making her English-language debut with nothing less than a sci-fi piece set in space. I’ve been following the development of this unicorn since early 2016, when novelist Zadie Smith was attached to write the first draft and Vincent Gallo and Philip Seymour Hoffman were eyed for the lead role.
“Robert Pattinson is accompanied by a who’s who of multidisciplinary geniuses: André 3000 of Outkast, legendary international thesp Juliette Binoche, Scandinavian installation art visionary Olafur Eliasson, French physicist/philosopher/scientific consultant Aurélien Barrau, and Tindersticks frontman [and] film composer Stuart Staples. I still can’t believe this thing exists.”
— Marko Orlic, film acquisitions and sales at Mongrel Media
Nayman:Â High Life
Claire Denis has been my favorite filmmaker (sorry, Jason Reitman) ever since I saw her astonishing 2001 vampire thriller Trouble Every Day,one of the most viscerally violent movies of the last two decades as well as one of the thirstiest. The spaces between these contradictions are where Denis thrives. At her best—which is almost all of the time, including her dusty, Corona-drunk all-timer Beau Travail and this year’s wonderfully flinty romantic comedy Let the Sunshine In—she variously seduces, perplexes, and brutalizes the senses like no other director I know. At 72, Denis is a genuine legend and a punk original, and the quotes that she gave The New Yorker earlier this year about her upcoming sci-fi drama High Life seem to promise a work of both conceptual and politically incorrect daring. Set in the future on a spaceship populated by convicts (including Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and André 3000, whom the director pegged after seeing his performance as Jimi Hendrix) and being piloted toward a black hole, the film is reportedly as dark and grim a vision as Denis has ever offered up: even more troublesome than Trouble Every Day and on a larger scale than her French-language work.The reference points for deep-space art house are inescapable, but I’m not expecting High Life to be its creator’s Solaris or 2001: A Space Odyssey. Instead, I’m hoping it’ll end up casting its own long shadow over a movie landscape that could use more authentically mysterious monoliths
As if a new film by Claire Denis wasn’t enough to get excited about, High Life features a cast of Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and Mia Goth among others. Pattinson is coming off a career performance in last year’s Good Time, and here he plays a space prisoner who is caring for his baby daughter on a dangerous flight. If you weren’t sold on Denis, Pattinson, and space, I’m not sure what else would entice you, but don’t sleep on this one.
High Life: After escaping the Twilight franchise, Robert Pattinson (like his co-star Kristen Stewart) has revealed excellent taste in collaborators. Last year, Pattinson teamed up with Josh and Benny Safdie (Good Time) and James Gray (The Lost City of Z) to make two of 2017′s best films. This fall, though, marks the actor’s most intriguing pair-up, as Pattinson joins forces with French auteur Claire Denis (Trouble Every Day, Beau Travail) for High Life. The, ahem, high-concept film, Denis’s first English-language production, follows a group of criminals who volunteer to travel to a black hole in the hopes of earning their freedom. Matters, one can only hope, will not go as planned, with advance word on the film hinting at a provocative sexual turn. We’re a long way from Edward Cullen, thank god.
James Rathbone, Boosie Fade | TIFF
James: Claire Denis is the G.O.A.T. director. André 3000 is the G.O.A.T. musician. Robert Pattinson is the G.O.A.T. of my heart.
David Ehrlich Indiwire | TIFF:
A new Claire Denis movie? Dayenu — that alone would have been enough. A new Claire Denis movie set in outer space? Stick it in my veins. A new Claire Denis movie set in outer space, starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and André Benjamin!? This thing is basically film nerd Star Wars.
Franklin Leonard (The Black List Founder) | TIFF:
It’s Claire Denis. What else does a person have to say?
Will Claire Denis deliver two of the best movies of the year? Judging from her track record, that’s likely to be a resounding yes. Following Let the Sunshine In she is switching gears entirely with her long-gestating sci-fi feature High Life, starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, and Mia Goth. Intriguingly, she is teaming with Olivier Assayas’ frequent cinematographer Yorick Le Saux rather than Agnès Godard.
