Extremely long-term anticipation thread for Claire Denis, Zadie Smith and Olafur Eliasson's Sci-Fi film, High Life

I've never been to one of their events, but the HQ or whatever was a nice space to see a movie

Sort of a halfway point between Event Horizon and Solaris

at last, the movie for me

somehow I've read hype for this elsewhere and didn't connect it to what I'd read previously on this thread and I'm kind of doubly-excited now

I disliked it; kept from hate only bcz half of the laughs seem to be intentional.

"The Fuckbox" is not a spoiler.

It is definitely very dislikable. A friend of mine napped through a good half-hour.

The only thing I'd have jettisoned would have been the expository train scene.

I guess my viewing here in nyc has special guests. Will report back in a few hours.

say hi to the fuck box for me!

this movie is going to make it harder to find a torrent of the classic alan cumming and forbes masson sitcom the high life isn't it?

I regret to inform you the audience questions were bad but Claire Denis and Robert Pattinson seem nice

Glen Kenny was the host/interviewer. They had to hustle because there’s a second showing where they’re doing q&a at a nicer theater in a few minutes

oh yeah and the movie took a while to sell me on the whole premise with the awkward cast energy but it had a... relatively strong finish

I had a couple serious questions in mind about working with a toddler and whether that experience affected how they approached other characterization

but after the dumb questions I am really just wishing I asked about the fuck box, and whether any of that cum was real

“ahem yes Mister Pattinson I must ask, was any of that your cum”

that baby question was addressed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc2ducSgpdc

short version - they did not get on with the baby that was cast (it cried all the time) (actually they cried all the time, it was twins) and CD & RP made a panicked phone call to a friend of RP who had a baby that liked him. That's the baby in the film. the mother was there all the time.

awesome, thanks!

If I had to ask a question I'd ask about how RP's buzzcut helped him inhabit the character. RP has amazing hair but he is very connected to it, which you can see in the interview. He's always playing with it, pulling it and smoothing it, I'd do the same if I had that hair. His hair helps him find the answers. What did no hair do?

he was wearing a hat tonight and didn’t touch his head much at all!

he's bewitching. perhaps tonight he had a haircut for another character in another film.

nah, he was just dressed all casual-like

I meant under the hat, perhaps he had another haircut for another character in a future film we will see that he'd rather disguise. either because it would give something away or because he basically didn't want to be seen with it.

I think he is lazy and owns a dozen black baseball caps tbh

he can look at me with those lazy eyes all day long.

that distant “just rolled out of bed at 5pm and it’s raining outside but A24 is making me show up at the AMC” stare

I liked this interview w/ Pattinson and Denis

https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/interview-claire-denis-and-robert-pattinson-on-the-making-of-high-life/

If I had to ask a question I'd ask about how RP's buzzcut helped him inhabit the character. RP has amazing hair but he is very connected to it, which you can see in the interview. He's always playing with it, pulling it and smoothing it, I'd do the same if I had that hair. His hair helps him find the answers. What did no hair do?

― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Friday, April 5, 2019 1

otm, been thinking about this for days

he mentions in that intvw that he wanted to go completely hairless!

I misread the question originally and must admit it is good

I think he is lazy and owns a dozen black baseball caps tbh

I heard an interview w/ the tech consultant for vampire baseball in Twilight, and he said Pattinson was by far the least athletic cast member involved. Chain-smokin' away...

I should have said baseball-style caps, they're just all black without logos

sorry for false deployment of the baseball signal

i understand, just cuz he played a guy from Queens for the Safdies i didn't expect logos

i really hate that High Life is being called a "masterpiece." Insane.

can't wait to see Stuart and the boys play the Osc*rs next year

Staples has directed a film that opens here shortly

goin to the Angelika screening tonite

i really hate that High Life is being called a "masterpiece." Insane.

I would reverse that opinion lol, no idea what the appeal of LTSI was meant to be and am utterly mystified by its following

Woodshock in Space

To my surprise, a success, albeit a limited and uncharming one. The translated English sounds like translated English; if I feel generous in my review, I'll say this works coming out of the mouths of people who've been in space too long and have forgotten the rhythms of their own language.

the dialogue struck me as considerably less awkward than some other first English features I've seen tbh

It's fascinating how the Twilight stars made their first films with French directors who also wrote stilted scripts for'em.

their first films for Assayas and Denis, if it's not clear.

I'm almost sad that Pattinson is going to be in the new Nolan opus, he made so many Twilight fans sit through so much arthouse fare over the last few years in an unbroken streak

High Life isn’t her first film in English, at least half of Trouble Every Day is too

Oh, come on. TED was, iirc, broadly marketed, produced, and consumed as a French feature -- to the extent that it got swept up in that whole New French Extreme horror wave of the period.

ok but what does that have to do with Denis making a movie in English

"he made so many Twilight fans sit through so much arthouse fare over the last few years in an unbroken streak"

This is good not bad.

I agree!!!

He sounded like he was speaking a different take on English in Cosmopolis, but that was just DeLillo dialogue that made it intact from book to script

When I asked Claire Denis why the bodies in space fall "down" even though there's no gravity she said, "you don't have an engine in your ass!" https://t.co/IiaK9yI8lz

— Cameron Scheetz (@cameronscheetz) April 22, 2019

I have no idea what this means but it's hilarious

should've been the tagline

Yea this was a letdown even though Pattinson was good

I’ve missed some of his more acclaimed work of recent years (Cosmopolis, Good Time) but this is definitely his best performance that I’ve seen.

"you don't have an engine in your ass!"

Haha, I love that. I also loved this film.