THE FILM THAT WON CANNES
Empire contributor Alex Godfrey on The Lighthouse, the buzziest film of the festival
Nothing had prepared us for The Lighthouse. there were some big names at Cannes this year — tarantino, Jarmusch, Miike — but there was something especially feverish about the anticipation for robert eggers’ mysterious second film. 2015’s The Witch was one of the most original horrors in years, and the prospect of eggers doing something in a lighthouse with Willem dafoe and robert pattinson was tantalising.
The Lighthouse screened for press at 8:45am on a rainy Sunday morning in a 825-seat cinema, which meant queuing — outside — inordinately early, most of the 4,000-plus journalists at Cannes hellbent on getting in. My umbrella and i got there at 7:15am, which may seem like madness, but there’s a perverse delight in gathering with like-minded cinephiles at an ungodly hour, excited to discover what eggers would subject dafoe and pattinson to.
Seconds before The Lighthouse started, the screen contracted, and contracted, until it was practically a square. We were going back in time. the black-and-white film is set in Maine circa 1890, with pattinson’s novice lighthouse keeper reporting to dafoe’s hoary old sea dog. the first fart is heard quickly, soon followed by furious masturbating, flying excrement and supernatural interjections. it is funny, absurd, sexual, disgusting, a wrestling match both psychological and physical. eggers summed it up best later: “Nothing good happens when two men are left alone in a giant phallus.”
there is so much pleasure in seeing these two exceptional actors just going at it; i barely stopped grinning. hitting the stage as the credits rolled, eggers, dafoe and pattinson grinned too, soaking up the standing ovation. The Lighthouse instantly became the talk of Cannes. it is cinema at its most effective, giving those who’d seen it a communal thrill, urging those who hadn’t to get to the next screening, whatever it took. What a treat it is.
THE LIGHTHOUSE does not yet have a UK release date at the time of press