11/4/19 - High Life (2018) - 5+/10

A little too obtuse and meandering to fully grip me. Quite interesting, but also more of a conundrum than a mysterious journey. Nice score, but so quiet and mumbly. I could feel the raw emotions but they are unclear. A tumultuous voyage down the space river intersecting jutties of intense sexual need, paternal care, callow loneliness, whispered shame, and an inevitable fatalistic hopelessness. Each of these dangerous rocks peak out, but mostly they are hidden beneath the icy blackness and pinholes of light watery surface, doing their work in secret. Such feelings overall also naturally stem from what Pattinson is doing. He is so subdued here, but still in control. He plays the line between infinite sadness, unendingly drained, and idealistically resolute. Sometimes it is enough, while at other times it is not, but I was never ready to take my eyes off the performance.

I liked High Life, but I felt like it eluded me overall. Solid and watchable, but I couldn’t quite journey passed its event horizon, towards the fruitful but forbidden knowledge at the center of the film.