At once a slick piece of cinema and a compelling instance of storytelling, “The Lighthouse” reminds us what it means to be completely stunned by a film in the current climate of conveyor-belt movie-making.
I personally found it quite jarring. I couldn’t string an articulate sentence together for a few minutes while I processed what I’d seen. Defiant to convention, this dreamy and illusory tale deals with murder and the mundane, insanity and gross misconduct, all while treating a subtle yet pervasive homoerotic subtext.
Set at the turn of the twentieth century on a barren island off the coast of Maine, this film, at first glance, leaves almost everything to the imagination. Slow to start and intermittently slow throughout, this film does little apart from build anticipation in the hope that we keep watching. And we do.
Despite its apparent lack of twists and turns, and hardly substantial premise, the film demonstrates an adroit ability to pull you in with its use of climax and anticlimax throughout. Directed by Robert Eggers, who was immediately thrust into fame for his 2015 debut, “The Witch,” this film is unequivocally original, meticulously executed and entirely thought-provoking.
Expressionist in its style, the minimalist film crosses multiple genres, often muddying the parameters of expectation for its viewers. It does this effortlessly with its score and script of matched fluctuating intensity. It also relies heavily on an almost-harsh and inescapable realism as it makes use of historical context and accuracy, fine detail and a sense that no one — perhaps not even the viewer — is making it off the island alive.
The psychological thriller aspect of the film’s multifaceted approach to genre is dependent on both this realism and an equally suffocating surrealist overtone. Through literary tropes such as the siren and the apocalyptic bird, as well as an ever-present threat of madness, Eggers shows that the mythical and the hypnotic can exist at once with the dreary and both are equally frightening.
As a person who has loved the essence of black and white film since I was a young child — favourites being the likes of “Heidi” and “His Girl Friday” — I can honestly say I was impressed by this modern approach to the stylistic technique. The choice to film in black and white is almost unavoidable given the setting, nonetheless, Eggers’ slant, with its grainy quality and stark contrasts, goes a long way in contriving effective authenticity for the film’s narrative space and time.
The plot opens with Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) arriving at the U.S. government lighthouse as a wickie, or lighthouse keeper, for what is supposed to be a four week period. There, he meets Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) who presents as a crass and despotic individual throughout the story’s arc.We quickly learn that while he is somewhat eccentric and overbearing, he has been the attendant at the lighthouse for a long time (we never find out exactly how long), and has a lot of wisdom to bestow on Winslow. Mostly, though, he strikes fear into him with stories of a past wickie who lost his sanity on the rock and subsequently died and with folklore of cursed birds whose bodies house the souls of sailors lost at sea.
The first scene of note shows the two eating dinner together in the dark and contained belly of the lighthouse. Wake is drinking a spirit, a ritual of his. He demands that Winslow do the same despite his protestation that he doesn’t like to drink. Still, Wake presses him. Winslow finally pours a cup. Before long, the two are spiralling into drunkenness together nightly.
It is not the seemingly vapid relationship Wake, and eventually Winslow, have with alcohol that makes this movie simultaneously hard to watch and impossible to ignore. Quite the opposite. It is instead the effervescent and sometimes grotesque performances delivered by the two actors that give rise to profound emotional responses among the audience.
The at times poignant portrayal of the relationship between the two main characters gives insight into the throes of masculinity while also presenting a realistic depiction of loneliness, repression and the inescapable fervor that goes along with the intensity of their shared isolation.
The relationship is, for the most part, anything but equanimous, though.
At one stage, in a glaringly bold and quite magnificent monologue, Wake invokes Neptune, begging the sea god to “strike [Winslow] dead.” Wake goes on, “bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til’ ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more.”
This is in response to Winslow refusing to say that he likes the lobster Wake cooks. Winslow blithely retorts, “Alright, have it your way, I like your cooking.”
The dark humor evoked in this scene is the quintessence of the film’s overall quality; it is entrenched, it is deeply wound up in an unnamable tension between the two men, but it is there.
The symbolic is an essential tool in “The Lighthouse” and is used subtly in parts and obtusely in others. There is of course the issue of Winslow’s repressed sexual desire, represented by the phallic lighthouse, which culminates in a few different seriously disturbing scenes. That’s not what I’m interested in, though.
The most interesting and dextrous example of symbolic realization in the ontology of Eggers’ vision is the struggle towards the light. Wake, being in charge, has executive control over the lamp chamber of the lighthouse and he keeps it under lock and key — a key which he sleeps cuddling.
Winslow, however, becomes obsessed with gaining access to the great and ominous light. In a scene that verges on the religious, Winslow makes a pilgrimage-like journey to the top of the lighthouse after stealing the key from Wake. When he reaches the top, in the most dramatic example of deus ex machina I’ve ever seen performed, Winslow is a man transformed. From kept in the dark to illuminated, from repressed to alive, from sullen and despondent workman to triumphant god.
The shift can in some way be seen as representative of his journey towards realizing himself, but that’s not the whole picture. In fact, I think I’d need to watch the movie another two or three times to unravel exactly what is going on in this scene.
“The Lighthouse” is the finest cinematic production I’ve seen at least this year and probably for as long as I can remember. It is downright dark, quietly hilarious, and grossly enchanting. Its play with temporality intrigues me to no end as the two slowly forget how long they’ve spent on the rock together and they begin their slow-and-then-rapid descent into madness as a result.
Claustrophobic and palpably atmospheric throughout, the film demonstrates that a psychological horror (or thriller, depending on how you view things) does not need to be filled with gimicky plot twists and harsh scare devices to be effective.
With ample crescendo, increasing ambiguity and a sense that we’re not supposed to fully understand, Eggers has written and directed a complete masterpiece and may have even created a new wave of old film and an entirely new genre all in one.
