LWLies 79: The High Life issue – On Sale Now!

Hav­ing edit­ed this august pub­li­ca­tion for 30 issues, I’ve now lived long enough to realise a long-held dream: cre­ate a mag­a­zine ded­i­cat­ed to one of the true mod­ern alchemists of cin­e­ma, Claire Denis. Her 2000 film Beau Tra­vail act­ed as a kind of gate­way drug, reveal­ing the pow­er, the pos­si­bil­i­ties and the expres­sive enchant­ments of nar­ra­tive film.

In 2019, she unleash­es onto the world a stir­ring and strange space odyssey called High Life. It’s a jour­ney to the out­er edges of the uni­verse, set at a time when human­i­ty is now lit­tle more than a walk­ing, talk­ing sci­ence exper­i­ment. Robert Pat­tin­son, again show­ing exem­plary taste in his choice of col­lab­o­ra­tors, leads a cast of repro­bates who have been saved from a death sen­tence by giv­ing their bod­ies over to a mys­te­ri­ous mis­sion being over­seen by las­civ­i­ous sex ban­shee, Juli­ette Binoche.

It’s a mov­ing, mind-melt­ing mas­ter­work, which is released into UK cin­e­mas on 10 May. So mark your diaries.

On the cover…

Lon­don-based illus­tra­tor Essy May cap­tures and reframes the film as a throw­back to the giants of cere­bral sci­ence fic­tion, such as Stan­ley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris. Her dig­i­tal­ly coloured graphite draw­ings are steeped in nos­tal­gia and dreami­ness, hark­ing back to the clas­sic sci-fi aes­thet­ics of the 1970s and ​’80s.

Influ­enced by the won­der of the cos­mos (her uncle is a renowned astronomer) and the visu­al ener­gy of clas­sic small crea­ture B‑movies. Essy hand drew this cov­er with a fine tech­ni­cal pen­cil and used dig­i­tal colours to com­plete the look.

Artists fea­tured in this issue include…

Lau­réne Boglio, Jamie Eke, Simon Hayes, Tavo Mon­tañez, Sophie Mo, Jason Ngai, Bern­har­da Xilko

Inside the issue…

Claire de Lune
David Jenk­ins writes on the life-alter­ing qual­i­ties found in the films of this vital, sin­gu­lar direc­tor, and meets her to chat about her cos­mic freak­out, High Life.

Altered States
Han­nah Wood­head talks to Robert Pat­tin­son about his chameleon­ic act­ing career, and he explains why he wor­ships at the altar of Claire Denis.

Amer­i­can Dreams
Ele­na Laz­ic sur­veys the career of Juli­ette Binoche, focus­ing exclu­sive­ly on her work in Eng­lish-lan­guage films.

2069: A Space Erot­i­ca Odyssey
Charles Bramesco voy­ages to the out­er-reach­es of the galaxy in search of a cin­e­mat­ic good time. dis­cus­sion of her cos­mic freak-out, High Life.

The Claire Denis Solar Sys­tem
The films of the French mae­stro pre­sent­ed as their own majes­tic celes­tial map.

The Sen­su­al World
Five per­son­al essays explore the cin­e­mat­ic land­scape of Claire Denis, each inspired by one of the five senses.

Threads
Christi­na Newland’s col­umn on fash­ion and film explores the icon­ic mys­tique of the space helmet.

In the back section…

Han­nah Wood­head talks immer­sive per­for­mance and cats with Josephine Deck­er, direc­tor of the won­der­ful Madeline’s Made­line; Manuela Laz­ic picks apart the poet­ic mod­ern slav­ery para­ble, Hap­py as Laz­zaro, with its direc­tor, Alice Rohrwach­er; David Jenk­ins talks LA, RPG com­put­er games and film­ing toi­lets with David Robert Mitchell, direc­tor of Under the Sil­ver Lake; and Han­nah Wood­head talks to Bo Burn­ham and Elsie Fish­er, direc­tor and star of mid­dle school-set com­e­dy of teen man­ners, Eighth Grade.

Plus, reviews of the key new releas­es for March, April and May; a deep dive into the work and career of Hong Kong action mae­stro, Sam­mo Hung, by Nick Pinker­ton; Jaime Christ­ley and David Jenk­ins offer some home enter­tain­ment picks; Han­nah Wood­head reports back on her rev­e­la­to­ry trip to the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val; Matt Turn­er explores the inter­sec­tion between memes and movies at the Rot­ter­dam Film Fes­ti­val; and Ian Mant­gani pans for gold at the Berlin Film Festival.

LWLies 79 is on gen­er­al sale 11 March. Sub­scribe today and get every new issue deliv­ered straight to your door.