C+Directed by Robert Eggers Starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Robert Eggers’ staggering debut The Witch took the worst fears of its Puritan protagonists and made them real. His follow-up, The Lighthouse, does the same with the legends and superstitions of 19th century seamen, but to lesser effect. Eggers’ talents for immersion remain as potent as ever, relying on the lighting implements of the time as well as the speech patterns and vocabulary of a particular subset of people. With its addition of a palpable foulness, The Lighthouse doesn’t prompt a lean-in like The Witch did. This is an environment worth running from. One can only be so immersed before rebellion sets in.
The Lighthouse seems dedicated to repelling the viewer from frame one. It’s in black and white, but not black and white like Frances Ha or Cold War, both modern films whose lack of color made everything look sharper. This is black and white as an instrument of obstruction. Along with a compressed frame further compressed by oppressive shadows that often restrict visible action by half, the viewer almost has to squint to make out what’s happening. On the other hand, that obstruction is frequently a blessing. This is a gross film, stinking of farts and old man breath and dried vomit in unwashed beards. Additionally, if ever an English-language film needed subtitles, it’s this one. Mumbled line deliveries are the order of the day, to say nothing of the lighthouse keeper, or wickie, patois filled with peculiar phrases and definitions. Judging by the exactitude of Eggers and his cast and crew, all this is purposeful, down to the fart. An asset of cinema is its ability to transport, but of all the places to be transported to.
The cast solely consists of Willem Dafoe as veteran wickie Thomas and Robert Pattinson as rookie Ephraim. Their weeks-long shift on the Lighthouse is both surprising and contains few surprises. Ephraim sought out this kind of job to get away from himself and his past, he chafes under Thomas’ leadership, and things decay from there. The legends that Thomas fills Ephraim’s head with at dinner seep into the latter’s daydreaming, but it’s the maxim to never kill a seabird that most rattles Ephraim when he impulsively clubs a combative gull to death. Like a salt-stained MacBeth, Ephraim makes prophecies comes true with increasingly erratic behavior doomed to clash against Thomas’ contradictory leadership tactics, such that he wants daytimes of strict obedience and evenings of drunken frivolity.
Both actors are going big as they can. Dafoe is one-upping Al Pacino in Devil’s Advocate, spitting out long curses while bulging his eyes. Pattinson is stretching his utility with several accents, moving from one New England locality to the next, depending on his state of drunkenness. As big as they both take it, Eggers understands that one can’t beseech Poseidon for vengeance and not generate a snicker or two. The Lighthouse is edited by Louise Ford like a comedy, with abrupt scene interruptions that accentuate the film’s wild emotional swings. Eggers is reprising some of his work in the Witch, especially in creating the sensation of constant surveillance for the characters. The comedic touches are a wholly new avenue after the deadly serious Witch, and thanks to his actors and Ford, he’s often successful.
Much of the experience of watching the Lighthouse is marveling at its existence. That feeling often coincides with my falling in love with a film. If one watches enough movies, difference becomes a great asset. Here, however, there’s not enough meat on these strange bones to be much more than the strangeness itself, or, in Eggers’ particular case, a deeply researched piece of cultural recreation. It’s appreciated to be given a sense of what it was like to tend a lighthouse 125 years ago, but I could’ve guessed that, as The Lighthouse so ably demonstrates, it sucked. C+
The cast solely consists of Willem Dafoe as veteran wickie Thomas and Robert Pattinson as rookie Ephraim. Their weeks-long shift on the Lighthouse is both surprising and contains few surprises. Ephraim sought out this kind of job to get away from himself and his past, he chafes under Thomas’ leadership, and things decay from there. The legends that Thomas fills Ephraim’s head with at dinner seep into the latter’s daydreaming, but it’s the maxim to never kill a seabird that most rattles Ephraim when he impulsively clubs a combative gull to death. Like a salt-stained MacBeth, Ephraim makes prophecies comes true with increasingly erratic behavior doomed to clash against Thomas’ contradictory leadership tactics, such that he wants daytimes of strict obedience and evenings of drunken frivolity.
Both actors are going big as they can. Dafoe is one-upping Al Pacino in Devil’s Advocate, spitting out long curses while bulging his eyes. Pattinson is stretching his utility with several accents, moving from one New England locality to the next, depending on his state of drunkenness. As big as they both take it, Eggers understands that one can’t beseech Poseidon for vengeance and not generate a snicker or two. The Lighthouse is edited by Louise Ford like a comedy, with abrupt scene interruptions that accentuate the film’s wild emotional swings. Eggers is reprising some of his work in the Witch, especially in creating the sensation of constant surveillance for the characters. The comedic touches are a wholly new avenue after the deadly serious Witch, and thanks to his actors and Ford, he’s often successful.
Much of the experience of watching the Lighthouse is marveling at its existence. That feeling often coincides with my falling in love with a film. If one watches enough movies, difference becomes a great asset. Here, however, there’s not enough meat on these strange bones to be much more than the strangeness itself, or, in Eggers’ particular case, a deeply researched piece of cultural recreation. It’s appreciated to be given a sense of what it was like to tend a lighthouse 125 years ago, but I could’ve guessed that, as The Lighthouse so ably demonstrates, it sucked. C+
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