This week, scientists provided the human race with its first-ever photograph of a black hole. It was a simultaneously terrifying and inspiring thing to see, and evidence of how much we still don’t know about the universe. It also served as a reminder that most of our thoughts and internalized images of outer space don’t come from scientific study—they come from movies.
Claire Denis’s High Life is the French art-house director’s first science-fiction film and her first English script. It depicts outer space in a way we’re not used to seeing on-screen: through the utter absence of visual information. The spaceship is a clunky rectangular box, its interiors are shabby and grimy, and the cosmos is represented by a few sprinkles of light on a black background.