The Lighthouse

Cinema has a long history of characters going crazy in isolated conditions. There are classic examples like The Shining, however other films like the arthouse drama Stromboli and the Russian sci-fi classic Solaris could fall under this category. The subgenre is simple and endlessly repeatable, just change the location and characters. Yet the result is always the same: if a character goes insane, the place kills them. If they manage to keep their sanity, they can leave.

The Lighthouse, directed by Robert Eggers, is a shining new addition to this genre that transplants the root narrative to an isolated island in the North Atlantic. It tells the yarn of two lighthouse keepers Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, who find themselves at odds on the isolated rock along with a flock of troublesome seagulls. As their tenure continues, the isolation, weather, and paranoia start to eat away at their sanity.

Eggers gleefully puts his characters under a vice, twisting their reality and the audience’s perception of events. Just when we think we’re getting close to understanding the situation, the narrative writhes to create a new fog over everything. This is expressionistic cinema at its finest. The film goes to lengths to create atmosphere and tension but leaves the details tantalizingly inaccessible. Your experience of the movie will depend on your tolerance for such ambiguities, and at points, it does get a little tedious.

The dialogue is especially cloudy, writers Robert Eggers and his brother Max Eggers use historical dialect to enhance the realism at the expense of comprehension. It can be easy for your eyes and ears to go on standby while Willem Dafoe spouts his oceanic sermons. The emphasis of the historical dialogue is perhaps a good argument for the fact that the film is meant to be experienced and not taken literally. It’s not what Dafoe is saying but the drama in his body language and the wild look in his eyes. What could they be hiding?

The film works best when it focuses on steadily ramping up the tension between the two characters. However, that tension doesn’t always carry the paper-thin plot, especially in the beginning. The first critical incident of the film which involves a sassy seagull doesn’t happen until a third of the way into the movie. The ramifications of that action don’t kick in until after the halfway point. The lack of a consistently developing narrative and focus on conversation is reminiscent of a hangout movie. The methodical pacing will probably be offputting to a large portion of moviegoers. 

However, The Lighthouse with all of its unique weirdness is such a cinematic symphony that the slumps in pacing are easily manageable and are long forgotten by the end, replaced with memories of a fantastically insane final act. For all it’s perceived complexities, the movie has an elegantly simple background narrative that resolves itself in a digestible way, yet keeps the ambiguities intact for multiple interpretations.  Actors Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson bring their best to the table; they are the most engaging aspect of the experience. That and the thoroughly murky black and white cinematography make this film one of the year’s most unique cinematic experiences and one that you shouldn’t miss.