Like J.G. Ballard’s novel, Ben Wheatley’s vision of High Rise takes place in a luxury apartment block in the 1970s, where every amenity is provided for the building’s residents. Hiddleston plays Dr. Robert Laing, a young doctor who is trying to make a fresh start on life by joining the building’s isolated society of yuppies and social climbers.
The claustrophobic setting and stylishly surreal tone invite comparisons to Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, which saw Chris Evans lead a rebellion among the post-apocalyptic remnants of humanity.
Intentionally cut off from the rest of the world, the High Rise lifestyle slowly begins to decay. As the electricity sputters out and the supermarket runs out of food, the community gradually dissolves into Lord of the Flies chaos, interspersed with Judge Dredd-like shots of the building’s retrofuturistic concrete exterior.
It’s a slow burn, but the film’s opening scene gives us a gruesome taste of things to come: a flash-forward to Laing sitting calmly on his balcony, eating someone’s pet dog.
What are the odds of Hiddleston’s internal monologue going “omgomgomg GILLIAN ANDERSON I AM HUGGING GILLIAN ANDERSON WHAT DO I DO SHE IS GILLIAN ANDERSON”
In his darkroom he is finally alone with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows. The only light is red and softly glows, as though this were a church and he a priest preparing to intone a Mass. Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
He has a job to do….
Just saw Chimerica at the Harold Pinter theatre. I left hating the photographer written by Lucy Kirkwood, but I never thought of the struggle.
It was pretty much studying this poem during my GCSEs and being introduced to Kevin Carter via the Manics song that got me interested in thinking about what war photographers do and the “do I take the photo or do I go and help the starving child etc?” question. What’s more important – showing the world what’s going on and the potential consequences of that or actually doing something to help the one person in front of you? Does the former do more good for the many while potentially sacrificing the one?
Mostly I got thinking about all this again as I’ve been listening to BBC Radio 3’s The Essay programme which has had the theme of Portaits of Capa all this week. Tom Hiddleston & Hayley Atwell are due to star in a film about Robert Capa and Gerda Taro which is why the programme caught my eye in the first place (I <3 Hayley Atwell).
If anyone actually manages to buy Flaunt Magazine (especially in the UK), please let me know. Most folks I know are interested in it for the Hiddleston interview.
