Reaction to nautical nightmare all at sea
The Lighthouse (15) ●●●●● The Lighthouse arrives on British shores on the back of both critical fanfare and baffled contempt.
Many have described it as a “love it or hate it” movie – but I fall somewhere in the middle.
It’s a film I don’t quite know what to make of — repeat viewings are required to fully assess its merits.
What director Robert Eggers has done is follow up engaging debut The Witch with another fantasy-horror that’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
Robert Pattinson (Thomas Howard) and Willem Dafoe (Thomas Wake) star as lighthouse keepers living on a remote New England island in the 1890s.
Eggers has created another unique flick that’s amazing to look at ; the whole film is in full-frame monochrome and the camera couldn’t get much closer to the lead duo’s faces.
With the incessant drone of a foghorn, Mark Korven’s earpiercing score and howling wind, the sound design is very unsettling, while there is so much water you feel like you’re getting soaked just watching it.
One-time Green Goblin Dafoe and future Batman Pattinson are in fine form as the cranky old sea dog and frustrated newbie respectively. The way the hairy Dafoe is lit at times he resembles Lon Chaney Jr’s Wolf Man and Pattinson expertly handles his character’s descent into madness.
Eggers co-wrote the story with his brother Max and to say it takes a few unusual turns would be an understatement.
Farts, nudity and p***-taking seagulls are just some of the absurd chain of events to play out; and indelible imagery abounds during the latter stages.
But the scenes of Howard and
Wake’s bickering and the former carrying out mundane tasks start to get on your nerves.
Original and eerie and frustrating and pretentious in equal measures, The Lighthouse is certainly not for everyone – but definitely leaves its mark.