Sure, space is the place, right now in auteur cinema, but space is the pace for French auteur Claire Denis. Denis is a master of using visuals to convey deeper personal conflicts. She is patient, observational and understated. She does not spell things out with handy dialogue, but pays attention to the pauses; the spaces of thought that words cannot be expressed, either due to language barriers or identity barriers.

Denis was born in France in the 1940s, but raised in colonial West Africa, spending time in Burkina Faso, Somalia, Senegal and Cameroon. Many of her films have dealt with the identity crisis of both the colonized and the colonizer. But they aren’t forceful films; they are films that are meant to wash over you like water shaping a pebble. Denis shows a keen awareness that the disconnect— between people in love, people in power—created by things left unsaid has the power to destroy or the power to free. It’s this very dissection of feeling alien on Earth, and observing from equal vantage points of otherness (including a pair of sex cannibals!) that makes the announcement that Denis will film an original sci-fi this year, ever so delicious.

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Image via The Cinema Guild

With major authors and auteurs beginning to embrace hard sci-fi and original sci-fi, between Ex Machina, Arrival, Upstream Color and (to an extent) Interstellar, we’re currently in a golden age of big ideas in movie sci-fi. But because Denis is a filmmaker whose every filmmaking current runs opposite of what we expect from the genres she dabbles in—from a military film, to a racial divide film, to a horror film, to an immigrant film—there is bubbling cinephile excitement brewing to see what a futuristic sci-fi movie from her view could be. We’ll drop the synopsis for High Life now, and rejoin you after your jaw drops. 

Deep space. Beyond our solar system. Monte and his infant daughter Willow live together aboard a spacecraft, in complete isolation. A solitary man, whose strict self-discipline is a protection against desire – his own and that of others – Monte fathered the girl against his will. His sperm was used to inseminate Boyse, the young woman who gave birth to her. They were members of a crew of prisoners: space convicts, death row inmates. Guinea pigs sent on a mission to the black hole closest to Earth. Now only Monte and Willow remain. And Monte is changed. Through his daughter, for the first time, he experiences the birth of an all-powerful love. Willow grows, becoming a young girl, then a young woman. Together, alone, father and daughter approach their destination – the black hole in which all time and space cease to exist. (via Wild Bunch)


Robert Pattison, Mia Goth and Patricia Arquette are set to star in High Life, from an original script from her frequent screenwriter Jean-Pol Fargeua (subsequently touched up for English by the award-winning author of White TeethZadie Smith). And if you’re intrigued by either the synopsis or want to know a new sci-fi film to look forward to and want to get to know the auteur better, we’ve selected four films that best highlight her attention to space and her direct approach to genre (her horror film does not feature jump scares and instead is truly horrific because she focuses on intense pain for an intensely painful duration). The below selections are gems of visual cinema and might best be read with the soundtrack accompaniment of Tindersticks, a minimalist group that’s become as intertwined with her pastiche as Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood has become with Paul Thomas Anderson.

'Chocolat' (1988)

No, this title has nothing to do with the Johnny Depp-Juliette Binoche chocolate-shop gypsy drama. Denis’ first film is an amazing introduction to her work. Not only is it deeply personal, told largely through the eyes of a young French girl in a West African colony, but how Denis films the landscapes, the spaces between words and actions is similar to how a short story writer stretches a specific feeling to become the mood of an entire piece; and Chocolat is a great entry point for her approach. The mood is hushed, sensual and sad. And much like how the sun looks in the distant desert, it’s hazy and burns with more complexity than meets the eye.

Giulia Boschi and Isaach De Bankole star as colonial-crossed would-be lovers. He is her black servant on her husband’s estate while French rule is beginning to wane in the unnamed country. But Chocolat is not a story about overcoming local bigotry or following one’s heart regardless of the prejudices held in the hearts of others. It’s a story about silence. Literal silence in not saying the words you want to say to someone else. The punishing silence of accepting seductive glances from someone but doing nothing about them. The silence that allows prejudices to continue. And the silence of a space that has recently become more vacant from the white aliens who are now leaving in droves. And Denis listens to everything that that silence allows: insects, floorboard creaks, unspoken pain and un-witnessed pleasure.

'Beau Travail' (1999)

Denis’ loose adaptation of Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd substitutes the British Royal Navy with the French Foreign Legion. Like Melville’s story, Beau Travail features a charismatic and angelic new addition to the outpost, Bruno (née Billy Budd; played by Michel Stubor), there is an envious officer, Galoup (née Claggart; played by Holy MotorsDenis Lavant) and there is a court-martial for mistreatment. But Denis is not interested in any military legalese.

Instead, Beau Travail is a luminary and fantastic study of the rigorous routine of the military and how it can affect the body, by creating and maintaining the pure perfection of the body as a utilitarian tool, but also how it can warp some minds who stick too close to the rigidity and deny their body any movements of internal expression. Bruno shows no repression in life, but he is still is able to maintain rigidity in drills. Galoup’s adherence to routine movements and chain of command makes his body more tense and repressed (Galoup only unhinges when free of the military, in a glorious loose-limbed dance by himself at a disco set to “The Rhythm of the Night”).

Denis’ film, her masterpiece, is not a critique of the military. Her camera has an awe of bodily achievements. She doesn’t leer or gawk, she just observes as shirtless men (due to the natural heat of the Djibouti desert) complete drills, scuttling beneath wires on the hard desert ground; they twist, turn and jump through obstacles, iron their shirts, fold the sheet corners of their bed and then dress to hit the local discos for a different type of release. There is a rhythm to their routine and it is thwarted by the internal grappling of a man who’s mastered the daily rigors but not the rhythm of the night.

'Trouble Every Day' (2001)

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Image via Lot 47 Films

Denis took a big risk by following her most acclaimed work with a confounding horror film. Trouble Every Day is so brutal and realistic—there is a moment where it does feel like you’re watching an actual snuff film and hearing the real screams of unspeakable and unimaginable pain—that it was hard to stomach for many art house fans but also too minimalist and observational to be championed by many horror fans. This is the bloodiest valentine ever delivered, and I’d never re-open it, even though the film-y part of me is glad I did.

Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dalle are honeymooners with an unfortunate affliction: they feed when they fuck. So their honeymoon consists of sacrificing the lives of others in order to love themselves and have moments of marital intimacy and spiritual closeness without the threat of devouring one another. Denis doubles down on the savagery to such an uncomfortable and look-away degree as to entirely remove any romanticism of becoming afflicted and instead shows the immense loneliness that comes from being unable to experience intimacy. Trouble Every Day pushes beyond any decency that exists in the horror genre and is actually truly horrific. If you see this once, you’ll (likely) never want to see it again. Every Day also shows that when Denis enters a new genre, she won’t play by its rules, but will bend it to her own.

'35 Shots of Rum' (2009)

In 2009, Denis came full circle, releasing both White Material and 35 Shots of Rum; Material was again set in an unnamed African country during a violent conflict that causes most workers of a coffee plantation to flee, leaving the colonial woman to fend for herself. That film stars the incomparable Isabelle Huppert and received the Criterion Collection treatment. But it’s Rum that fits best with her filmography of post-Colonial African and French identity crises. Rum focuses on immigrants in Paris and—like everything mentioned above—Denis approaches the immigrant story much differently than you’d expect.

Lionel (Alex Descas) and Jo (Mati Diop) live in a building of immigrants, widower and daughter, with steady tenderness but a little disconnect. Lionel is a train conductor, and like many immigrants (and men), he identifies with the hard work that he puts in. When a slightly older co-worker is forced into retirement and that loss of blue-collar identity sends his life into catastrophe, Lionel becomes aware that his identity needs to shift from a working man (provider) to a father (support) in order to not feel stripped of his dignity when his time comes.

Rum is a quiet film, full of small surprises of interpersonal relationships that are revealed like a slow peel of an onion. Relationships become apparent organically, gestures of small gifts and the proper occasion to drink celebratory shots, are achingly profound under Denis’ careful, observational direction.

We’re sure that after giving these films a view, you’d become ever so curious what a sci-fi film about artificial insemination and black holes would become in the hands of such a master. And how indescribable it’d actually be. High Life—with Pattinson, Arquette and Gothwill begin production soon.