French director Claire Denis will be in Chicago to present her latest philosophical sci-fi movie Highlife, three days after its official release in the US. Join us for the free screening and post-film Q&A, moderated by Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and Professor Daniel Morgan of the University of Chicago.
One of a handful of filmmakers who can credibly lay claim to the title of World’s Greatest Living Director and Artist, Claire Denis creates films that speak as much through words as they do through movement, rhythm, and texture. Profound and empathetic studies of outsiderhood, immigrant alienation, the ravages of colonialism, and the mysteries of love and desire, her films are not so much watched as experienced in a full-sensory head-rush of sound and image.
High Life
Claire Denis, France/USA/UK/Poland, 2018
Anyone familiar with her work knows that a Claire Denis sci-fi film will not be like any other sci-fi film, but High Life is even stranger, bolder, and more sexual than expected that will recall at times the science fiction of Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky. Set aboard a ship populated with death row inmates employed in dangerous space exploration, this masterwork is more concerned with internal galaxies and the black holes of man than interstellar wonders. Starring Robert Pattinson, André Benjamin, and a magnificently tressed Juliette Binoche, High Life also features a mesmerizing score by Denis’ frequent collaborator Stuart A. Staples of Tindersticks.
Doc Films will also present a series on Claire Denis' work before this event.
