Claire Deney 's new work "Life in Space" finally has resources, and this film has been waiting for a year.
French director Claire Denis should be regarded as one of the most important female directors in the film industry today. Her highest-ranked works before should be "Forbidden Love in the Army" and "35 Cups of Rum". There has always been a unique observation of human nature in her works, and this observation of human nature is often found in subtle eyes and movements.
In "Forbidden Love in the Army", she uses peeping to show a faint love and infatuation. When the officer's eyes unconsciously aimed at the male protagonist who was bathing on the beach, this kind of subtle emotional development paved the way for the later psychological abnormality.
This kind of exquisite presentation is the most interesting part of Claire Deney's movies. Even when shooting genres, you can feel her most delicate side, quietly telling the complex and inexplicable aspects of complex life. Emotions.
The new work "Life in Space" was originally a work locked in the main competition unit of Cannes last year . Cannes artistic director Fu Mao has been thinking of this film for a long time. In the end, because the special effects were not finished in the later stage and the opening of Cannes did not catch up, I had to go to the main competition in San Serenity, and finally won the special jury award in San Serenity .
In fact, it is very unfair for a director at the level of Claire Deney to compete with a group of rising stars. Just like Godard's "Book of Images" was shortlisted for the Cannes main competition last year, this award is already considered acceptable. (After all, Claire Deney’s works can enter Cannes)
Going back to the movie "Life in Space" and looking at his overall setting, it is a scientific concept. Under this scientific concept, it is actually the essential problem of human desire and life that Denis has always observed.
The story told by the whole script is still quite big.
In order to conduct scientific research, the scientific research organization selected a group of people from death row prisoners and sent them to space near the black hole.
A doctor monitors their data every day, and regularly takes men’s semen to make women pregnant, in an attempt to give birth to the next generation in space.
The male lead is one of them, and these people live on the spacecraft every day. After the doctors take away the semen, they will regularly make them take drugs to increase the secretion of male hormones.
The boys who took hormones but had nowhere to vent could only suppress their sexual desires, and finally one day there was a rape incident. After the rape, the doctor stole the semen of the male lead and implanted it into the girl.
So mankind's first child in space was born, but the matter was far from over, and depression was still passed on in the space capsule. Finally one day, someone slammed the scissors at the doctor.
The film’s settings are full of loopholes. If measured by rational hard science fiction, this is unqualified. However, Denis obviously didn't want to shoot hard science fiction, so he didn't care about these scientific principles at all. Under the coat of science fiction film, this is an "author's film" through and through .
The original name of the film is called "High Life", I think it can actually be understood as living in high places, because the so-called space life and black holes are nothing but isolated spaces created by Denis to observe human emotions, and the film also says very much. Understand, this is a thorough experiment.
The confined space is equivalent to a microscope, and the addition of human intervention to take sex hormones is the catalyst for an experiment. When the effect of the catalyst is placed under the microscope, the slightest change in a person's mood will appear more manic.
The shape of the spaceship is designed as a box. This airtight box design is actually rare, unlike the shape of the spaceship in the general impression.
The reason why Denis designed it in this way is like a cage for guinea pigs in a laboratory, but it actually puts the prison in space.
The female represents the mother in the film, which is equivalent to a petri dish , while the male role is equivalent to a donor .
But Deni obviously does not treat the female role as a petri dish, and the male role is not a simple donor, but gives emotional depression and impact. This makes the overall temperament of the movie different from other movies with the same settings.
The doctor played by Juliet Binoche looks like a creator. She uses sex hormones to control the overall situation on the spacecraft and constantly tries to create life.
This seemingly god-like position makes her position on the spacecraft seem sacred and inviolable. But Deni obviously doesn't need this kind of role like the Virgin, so she pulled the supreme role of god from the altar and became a carrier of female desire.
In ancient Greek mythology, male gods are generally endowed with strong conquerability and fascinating characteristics. For example, Zeus once turned into a giant eagle and the queen of mortal Alex gave birth to the young Perseus, and Perseus Leading mortals to complete the mission of rising is more like a resistance to patriarchy and divine power.
And when this kind of resistance is transformed into the present, the subject is completely different, and the divine power has been quietly transformed from the illusory god into the power of science.
"Metropolis" once discussed the world shape that technology has changed. The world that is forcibly divided into two classes and the huge social operation machine symbolizes the control of technology over people. Science is like a ubiquitous God. The resistance of the rebels carries a hint of challenge to God.
From this perspective, the scene where the scissors are attacked by the doctor in "Life in Space" is more like a controlled resistance to the pressurer, but because the pressurer is a woman, the color of patriarchal resistance is weakened. But in essence, it is still human beings fighting against theocracy.
As the image of a creator, the doctor himself has desires. She constantly seduce other male members, even the male lead played by Robert Pattinson did not escape her seduce.
In fact, there is a kind of repressed desire color in itself, so in addition to the personality of God, the role of the doctor is more to undertake the discovery of a female desire.
She loosened her long hair from time to time, and stood in front of the fan to dry her hair. It was the release of her feminine desires.
The most obvious effect of this release is that the man received the hormonal signal she released, quietly watched from a distance and stretched his hands into his pants, and finally tried to exercise control.
This kind of perspective and behavior of voyeurism is also in the same line as that of the military officer’s peeping into the sexy body of male students in the hot and dry environment in "Forbidden Love in the Army".
What is more similar is the environment in the two movies, one is a military camp and the other is space. The common point is the setting of isolation from the outside world. So you can think of it as a bolder exploration of human desire after Deney's "Forbidden Love in the Army".
The father of the child, played by Robert Pattinson, is the central figure throughout the film. What Deney wants to explore with this role is more about the connection between family and family.
The reversal of gender weakens the patriarchal color of the male protagonist's role, and more conveys a kind of perceptual family value. This setting becomes more obvious as the doctor commits suicide.
When you observe the personal settings of everyone on the spacecraft, there are desperate mothers after pregnancy, young men who can’t stand sexual repression and rape, and the creator who controls everything. After a comprehensive analysis, you will find that the only one on the ship wants to protect Everyone who is not harmed is the male lead.
This undoubtedly confirms one point, which is the personality that Denis gave to the male protagonist's father. Obviously, in Denis's heart, the role of his father is very important.
Later in the movie, when the male protagonist who has become a father discovers that the dog on another ship has been given the same thing, turning the ship into a purgatory on earth, he instinctively prevents his daughter from seeing this.
This is undoubtedly an instinctive protection for the family and daughter after the male protagonist becomes a father. This kind of people like mountains and trees is exactly the great image of his father in Denis's mind.
Claire reversed the male and female genders in Greek mythology and removed the patriarchal side of males. He discovered the human instincts embodied in the biological connection between father and daughter, and put it into the most subtle emotional expressions. It seems difficult for you to notice, but when you look carefully, you find that it is exactly the case.
Looking at the colors of the world of other animals from Claire's eyes, it makes a clear distinction between humanity and animality. On the few animal ships that we have taken, we can see a mess.
On the human side, a guardian representing humanity appeared to protect the spacecraft, which fundamentally distinguished humanity from animality.
This kind of setting seems a bit unfair to animals, but in fact, the animality of people is also magnified in Claire's lens, which also smoothes the boundaries between animals and people to a certain extent.
In this way, the image of the male protagonist has become an independent existence like a god, which is undoubtedly the supreme theory of family affection. Anyone will become a god-like tree once they have a family connection. At least in the eyes of their children, the father must be a tree. This is human instinct.
"Space Life" is a story that is completely isolated, but in the end it settles on human biological instincts. I personally think that this is Claire Denis's amazing pen. Science fiction fans may not like it, but there is enough room to make people think. This is also a consistent feature of Denis movies.
It is this characteristic that makes Cannes, the world's highest movie feast, favor her time and time again.
(The picture in the text comes from the Internet)
Ruiying Vanguard Author | Zhiyuan Jun
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