High Life: Film Review (2018)

I don't often write trigger warnings, but this review includes discussion of sexual assault, sexual violence, rape, forced pregnancies and prison labour exploitation.



High Life (2018)


Director: Claire Denis
 Writers: Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeu, Geoff Cox


Cast: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André 3000, Mia Goth



High Life is not a sci-fi film you put on to pass some time.

It’s not an action-packed space-adventure.

It’s a confounding, brutal study of power, systematic control and abuse of bodily autonomy under the guise of scientific progress.

The film is set in space, a mission designed to recycle prisoners from jail cells in the name of ‘science’. This, in particular, is to harvest energy from a black hole. A suicide mission that we see unfold from a dual timeline. We witness the atrocities committed on the vessel, and the post-life created by Monte (Pattinson) and his daughter. Claire Denis strips away all notion of romance in space exploration and we receive a cold, soulless vision of exploitation, humans as subjects, expendable bodies thrown into the void with no care for what comes from them.

The score of this film ties together the dread; it’s drenched in isolation, unsettlingly quiet and hopeless. Stuart A. Staples does an outstanding job reminding you that they are existing in an empty universe, on route to the end.

The track, ‘Willow’, performed by Robert Pattinson, is a beautiful, emotional punch to the film. It’s a soft, tender lullaby to the void, a profoundly sad tribute to raising a daughter with no world, no love other than what he can offer. The love between him and his daughter is so beautiful, it’s a reminder that despite what can be taken from us, humanity can remain.



The setting is a honeytrap for a predator, and Juliette Binoche plays one of the most terrifying versions I have ever seen. A scientist obsessed with reproduction to the point of power. She obtains a god-complex, obsessive in her ambition to create life despite crossing both ethical and human boundaries to do so. The prisoners are stripped of their agency in nearly every regard you can think of. She controls and manipulates them with the use of a drug that enhances sexual arousal and forces ejaculation, isolating them with a combination of sedation, hormonal regulation and stimulation without consent. The drug strips them of choice; their ejaculation does not come from self-arousal but a mandated act. It’s disgusting, unethical, and an atrocious violation of human rights. Reducing people to biological resources, dehumanization at its core. Consent is meaningless in this world; survival is the only option.



The ethics of prison labour and forced reproduction are deeply entangled together in High Life. It illuminates marginalized, voiceless people in society and uses past transgressions as a reason to exploit prisoners for the benefit of others. Their reproductive functions are treated as labour in addition to running the ship. They are not given a choice here; this is rape. Dr. Dibs' obsession with creating human life is to study it, in all capacities, including the effects of space travel while in utero. In this, High Life offers a visceral, unsettling portrayal on how easily humans can be reduced to mere objects, from the concept of prisoners being exploited and used for scientific purposes, to the babies dying in the name of experiments.

Robert Pattinson’s Monte is celibate, by choice. He has never taken the drug, therefore he has never experienced addiction, and his ejaculation cannot be used for the experiments. However, that does not stop Dibs from being a predator on him, raping him and using his semen to impregnate Pill (Mia Goth). She undergoes a forced cesarean, a traumatic birth that eventually leads to her taking her own life. She was systemically raped, forced to give birth to a child she never wanted, concluding her story in a heart-breaking, bleak and visually symbolic representation of how her mind mirrored her body. This event also serves as a continuing catalyst for the film, further emphasizing the themes of survival, isolation and the repercussions of forced birth. 





Monte’s relationship with his daughter is the only flicker of humanity you see in the film. It offers a hopeful viewpoint of love and resilience through a triad of abuse. There is quiet love here. Moments of redemption from a man who was cut off from his emotions. A father and daughter navigating an impossible situation.

I will tell you, I will never watch this film again. It broke my heart in a multitude of ways, but I do think it’s a profoundly important movie that pushes cinematic boundaries. Denis does not offer any comfort here. There is no closure. High Life is a suffocating, slow dissection of what happens when humans are treated as resources rather than individuals. We are forced here to reflect on grim realities that play into our actual society. Prison labour is real. Reproductive control is real. Systemic is real. This is the scariest movie I have ever seen. A nightmare. In every capacity a nightmare can hold.

4/5