The Lighthouse

Another film from the Cannes Film Festival is The Lighthouse. This is the second feature film from Robert Eggers, with his first being The Witch in 2016. Now, The Witch was a somewhat polarizing movie and not everybody enjoyed it. For a first movie, I think it is pretty great. One of the more noticeable aspects about The Witch is how well shot it is. I certainly have some issues with it, but immediately after watching it I could tell that this is a director I wanted to keep my eyes on. His newest film, The Lighthouse, is something that I am actually comfortable calling a masterpiece.

The Lighthouse stars Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe. These are two actors that I really love, so obviously that is a plus. Robert Pattinson did a fantastic job and, in my opinion, Willem Dafoe gave a career best performance in this movie. He essentially plays a stereotype/parody level seaman, but he seriously goes full Captain Ahab. The movie is aware of this and even pokes fun at it, but holy crap, not only is Willem Dafoe perfectly cast for this role, but his performance is nothing short of mesmerizing. There is so much unfiltered energy that he brings to this film and I cannot imagine anyone else pulling it of in the way that he did. And I am sure you are thinking that it might be difficult to take this movie seriously with this type of character playing such a prominent role, but despite this being a psychological horror, this is also actually a comedy. And to be perfectly honest, I am not sure I have ever seen a film that has blended those two elements together so perfectly before. The comedy aspects are very funny and they do not take away from the overall creepiness of the film. Despite being a psychological horror, this movie is mostly dialogue and at no point did I ever feel bored by any of it. Not only were the terrific performances obviously very watchable, but the style of the film is just so crazy and unique. They filmed the entire movie on black and white thirty-five millimeter film. The film is also presented in a 1.19 : 1 aspect ratio. It is very stylistic, and at the same time, there are very modern elements at play as well. The score for the film was absolutely fantastic. The music was so great and well used that I can perfectly imagine it in my head right now along with the corresponding scenes. The way that music was used in the opening scene of this film made it super intense. As soon as it started, I was immediately sucked in. The dialogue in this movie was also fantastic. The film is set in the early 1900s and they actually researched historic Ledger's and journals from real lighthouse keeper's to write the dialogue for this film. Not only that, but they filmed the movie in Nova Scotia, meaning a lot of what we see in this film is real. The environments, the crazy weather, anything that was faked certainly does not feel like it. The production design on this film was so fantastic that I could not even tell you what was real and what was not. This film succeeds very well at creating a feeling of constantly rising tension and chaos. As the film progresses, it just gets crazier and crazier and it is so much fun to watch and every element of the film becomes incorporated in this rising chaotic tension. The music, the performances, the cinematography, the environment, it all gets crazy. This is a film where I caught myself about 7 different times just nodding along being like "yeah, that was awesome". This is a film where even though there were points I could sense the direction it was going, I did not feel disappointed by the time it got there. Everything that happens, I was thinking "yep, that's probably the best way it could have happened". The editing in this film is superb. Once again, there are several sequences engraved in my mind because of how much of an impression it left on me. There is so much of this movie that I can visualize perfectly from memory after only having seen it once, a month ago. There are so many perfect shots and sequences. There are so many wild and creative choices. This is a movie that I could probably watch a billion times and never feel bored. There was clever reincorporation that I caught on my first watch and I am sure there is even more on a second watch. I guess my one concern regarding this film would be its future distribution. With the dialect of this film being so unique, I am not sure exactly how much I would be able to interpret accurately without subtitles. On Amazon Prime, were I watch it, there were English subtitles, so there was no issue there. I have only seen it once and I have never seen it without subtitles, so I honestly have no idea. I genuinely would not oppose watching this film with English subtitles because they certainly helped my experience watching this film more in the way that characters talk as it is definitely something that I am not very familiar with. Who knows, it might be fine. I have no idea, but either way, I cannot wait to see it again. I cannot praise this movie enough and it was nothing short of excellent. It is its own unique experience and I have not seen anything else quite like it before. It was one of my favorite films of last year, so check this one out as soon as you can.

Written by: Jared Kirschenbaum Instagram: @jaredkirsch_