HIGH- RISE

High-Rise by Ben Wheatley is a movie you can (and you should) analyse non-stop.
Many people will say, that it is overdraw, but maybe it was supposed to be? Actually
High-Rise is kinda ridiculous, but that makes it the unusual, intriguing, horrifying and shocking vision of the future.

A modern high rise is like a paradise for London elite or it just looks like that at the beginning. Every floor represents different walk of life. The higher you live, the more important you are. So class struggle is unavoidable. It is even hard to notice when parties, orgies, light arguments turn into a bloody fight for the pinnacle. Everyday life becomes a race. Regardless of place in the society, floors in an apartment, everyone turns into animal. This situation becomes worse when defects in the tower block appear, without electricity, water and food, people become prisoners of the building, prisoners of the competition. However, when the idyll turns into a dark paradise, when the differences increase, you can be sure that, despite everything, music is still playing there.

What will end this madness? And will it be over or is it just the beginning of a society free from prohibitions, orders and money? These are question the viewer probably will have.

And who in all this is Dr. Laing (Tom Hiddleston), a person who is in some way main character?
Laing is in the middle of this pyramid, which means he can rise, but he can also fall. He tries to fit into both the lower and higher classes, but not everybody is interested in him. In the end, he sets aside. Some will say that this character is bland, others will notice that maybe, this character was supposed to be like this.

At some point, Richard Wilder (Luke Evans) attracts our attention. He rebels against the authorities of the upper classes and wants to do a report about the skyscraper, about what is happening in it. He is able to do everything, so the inhabitants of the upper floors considered him as the most insane and dangerous. However, isn’t it the opposite, aren’t the upper classes worse?

To be honest none of the characters in the movie is particularly interesting, everyone has their own story, their own lives and they just share a desire to rise above others, that's all. But thanks to this, we do not know who can immediately come before the ranks of this mass hunger for power and money.

Technically, the film is also a rarity - photos, shots are  focused on the details. Interior design, scenography, the atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s, music cannot be matched. And, of course, an amazing cast makes the movie even better- Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Jeremy Irons and others.

After the performance we stay with many questions. What role do women play there? How to get to the top and is it worth it at all? Who gained the most in this fight and who lost the most? Who really rules? Who is really normal? Does the building have to meet all your requirements or do you need to adapt to the building? What is this skyscraper at all? And who is the architect living on the top floor, the creator of all this, who at some point realizes that in the process of creation he made a mistake? Can such a place become a "home"? Did all this lead to some sort of purification?

As a matter of fact High-Rise is not an easy movie, it is shocking and offensive. But it should not be surprising; it is a story about society, about us. It is definitely worth seeing.