Juliette Binoche in 'High Life' (2018) Madman
Juliette Binoche in 'High Life' (2018) Madman
High Life (2018) Madman

The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present

High Life

Claire Denis | France, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, US | 2018 | MA15+
Film

This event has ended and tickets are no longer available.

When

Wed 23 Mar 2022

Update

Cinémathèque’s Juliette Binoche season will take place at The Capitol with ACMI Cinemas currently closed due to urgent building works. There is no box office at The Capitol, so new memberships must be purchased online or at the ACMI Tickets and Information Desk, which will remain open until 7.30pm on screening nights. We apologise for any inconvenience and look forward to welcoming Cinematheque members back to the ACMI Cinemas soon.

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In her “uncompromising and enigmatic” (Erika Balsom) English-language debut, Denis explores an isolated dystopia of deep space, drawing on the philosophical depths of sci-fi while typically rejecting standard genre and narrative forms. Built with a rich aesthetic palette that blends celestial darkness and luminosity, Denis’ film features a hypnotic, experimental score by Tindersticks musician and Denis regular Stuart A. Staples; a truly fearless performance by Juliette Binoche; and production design assisted by installation artist Olafur Eliasson. Also starring Robert Pattinson.

Format: Colour, DCP
Language: English
Source: Madman
Runtime: 113 mins

Event duration

113 mins

Rating

MA15+

Where

The Capitol
113 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000

How to get there

Membership options

Mini membership
(3 consecutive weeks)
$27–$32

Annual memberships
$153–295

See full options

Also screening on Wed 23 Mar

Program

Fearless Vulnerability: The Films of Juliette Binoche

Three Colours: Blue (1993) – Wed 23 Mar at 7pm
High Life (2018) – Wed 23 Mar at 8.50pm
Certified Copy (2010) – Wed 30 Mar at 7pm
Non-Fiction (2018)– Wed 30 Mar at 9pm
Caché (2005) – Wed 6 Apr at 7pm
Alice et Martin (1998) – Wed 6 Apr at 9.10pm

View the full program

About the program

Among the most accomplished and significant actors in contemporary French cinema (her 10 César nominations for Best Actress trailing only Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Deneuve), as well as one of the most recognisable stars of international arthouse cinema, Juliette Binoche (1964–) has, over her nearly four-decade career, become a feminine icon – romantic, tragic, glamorous, fearless, anguished. At the same time, she has sustained an extraordinary career across wildly varied genres and film styles, from the arthouse auteur cinema of Kieślowski, Haneke, Carax, Denis and Kiarostami, to crowd-pleasing prestige fare and international blockbusters. Born to parents who were both actors, Binoche decided on a career in theatre by her mid-teens and burst onto cinema screens in 1985 with a string of significant roles, including her star-making performance in André Téchiné’s Rendez-vous. One of a wave of extraordinary young French actresses to emerge at this time, she lacked the feral unpredictability of Béatrice Dalle, the raw sex appeal of Emmanuelle Béart, the wounded defiance of Sandrine Bonnaire, but her subtle, interior and often-anguished persona came to the fore in her stunning, career-defining turn in Three Colours: Blue. The first of many movies to utilise the true power of the Binoche closeup, tears slowly welling in her eyes, Kieślowski’s film came to define her screen persona. In what Ginette Vincendeau would term the eroticisation of anguish, the archetypal Binoche character suffers, neither struggling to stifle her pain nor inflict it upon us, but feeling it keenly, authentically, nonetheless. This relative performative neutrality, the ability to sit with the emotion, has appealed to such important slow-cinema auteurs as Hou, Kiarostami and Dumont. In an era where the ethics of acting itself are increasingly called into question – what it means to “play” another person – Binoche expertly negotiates the contested ground between presentation and representation. This season focuses on many of Binoche’s most significant performances following her collaboration with Kieślowski, taking in her fascinating return to working with Téchiné and her provocative and playful teaming with Claire Denis and Olivier Assayas.

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About Melbourne Cinémathèque

Australia's longest-running film society screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.

Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven. 

Learn more | View the 2022 program

Melbourne Cinémathèque - Dirk Bogarde in a still from Victim