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★★★☆☆
16 October 2019
A movie review of THE LIGHTHOUSE. |
“Catch your breath lad,” Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe)
Technically, the creative team look to be in total command. However, the story and dénouement underwhelm. Director Robert Eggers’ previous feature, THE WITCH [2015], also suffered from an ending that would have benefitted from ambiguity. THE LIGHTHOUSE would have evoked more power had there been no climactic finale, no maelstrom, and instead leaned towards the idea of a perpetual nightmare. Endings should not be neat. The mind should be cogitating long after the credits roll.
Technically, the creative team look to be in total command. However, the story and dénouement underwhelm. Director Robert Eggers’ previous feature, THE WITCH [2015], also suffered from an ending that would have benefitted from ambiguity. THE LIGHTHOUSE would have evoked more power had there been no climactic finale, no maelstrom, and instead leaned towards the idea of a perpetual nightmare. Endings should not be neat. The mind should be cogitating long after the credits roll.
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The whole tone of THE LIGHTHOUSE is ominousness. Music, lighting, place, blare a warning. Obviously, a nod to the setting, an 1890s lighthouse on a New England island. However, had the music been zippy and the look avoided monochrome, an odd couple comedy might have resulted. (Think excellent UK sitcom PEEP SHOW [2003-2015].) The drone of foghorns, evoking INCEPTION [2010], adds to the unease. Thomas Wake is the draconian lighthouse keeper in charge, and Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) a newly employed assistant. Ephraim is effectively a serf, doing the grimiest scutwork.
Thomas labels their profession title as being a “wicki”. If the term is explained in the movie, I missed it. At a guess, perhaps the reference is to the wick of the oil-powered light, before electricity was to arrive? The word goes to the way Thomas speaks, and to lesser extent Ephraim: Colloquialisms and jargon and dialect. Robert Pattinson’s accent sounds a bit like actor James Cagney.
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THE LIGHTHOUSE is not the romantic anguish of THE LIGHT BEYOND OCEANS [2016]. What draws someone to such an isolated job? Trauma, escape, social awkwardness, misanthropy? The film deftly conveys the elongation of time. The black and white cinematography aids the bleeding of days. One wondered if there would be a jokey twist suggesting in fact they had just spent a week on the island.
So claustrophobic are proceedings, you would be forgiven for assuming a spiritual element to the narrative. Is this venue purgatory or hell? At one point Ephraim has a bad dream. I really hope that’s not the implication about the plot. He even sees a mermaid (Valeriia Karaman), and (hallucinates?) Thomas as a malevolent octopus. A fairy tale, or a nod to the surrealness of existence?
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Their senses are pummelled. Cramped conditions. They share a single bedroom. There appears to be no greenery. Thomas is obsessed with the lighthouse beam. Reminding of Cliff Curtis’s relationship with the sun in Danny Boyle’s SUNSHINE [2007]. Noise is at times deafening.
THE LIGHTHOUSE is not all po-faced. The filmmakers are not above scatological humour. Even a visual gag harks back to THE BIG LEBOWSKI [1998], but involving excrement instead of Donny’s ashes. Plus the slapstick of Ephraim’s repeated tangling with a surly seagull. Breaking the fourth wall when we first meet the duo, they look right at us. Breaking of the fourth wall in a building with one wall. Also, there are times when Thomas gaslights Ephraim. Geddit?
Madness and isolation has been done far better, e.g. THE SHINING [1980] and THE OTHERS [2001]. And for a closer, superior film, check out HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER [2010].
