5 / 5
Stretching a rumbling feeling of dread through 109 minutes is no small task, even with two stellar performances from Willem Daefoe and Robert Pattinson. Multiple stylistic methods are needed to make an arthouse gamble like The Lighthouse work, and the result is one of the most psychologically-daunting, immaculately-paced thrillers of the year. The many unusual cinematic choices by director Robert Eggers all work to portray the black-hearted voids of distrust and disconnection between the two conflicting stranded protagonists, most notably the classic black-and-white 35mm format to show new dimensions of atmospheric and paranoia-influenced dread. The film therefore feels more akin to a David Lynch homage, following a stream of bizarre, sometimes terrifying arthouse visages being captured in dark cinematic style as two stranded lighthouse operators steadily descend into an alcoholic frenzy.
Thomas Howard takes on the only job he could find as a lighthouse operator on a tiny barren island alongside sea-worn captain Thomas Wake. Overworked and consistently shouted at with orders and superstitious rhetoric, Howard’s repressed demons begin emerging as his distaste for the tale-spurting old man soon leads to frantic paranoia at what secrets he could be sheltering from his gaze. After hearing Wake’s old operator was driven to madness and seeing the man nakedly approaching the lighthouse’s lamp, Howard begins envisioning lustful, guilt-ridden sights of madness himself. Does this ghostly island hold a secret symbolic curse or is the simple pain of these two men’s isolation what incites this morbid lunacy?
One of the Lighthouse’s main triumphs is in its cinematography by Jarin Blaschke, being the pinnacle catalyst to the film’s manipulation of paranoia on the characters’ unpredictable actions and mental states. The rocky storm-beaten island is an obscured barren hell with consistent long shots of Thomas Howard’s rain-blinded venturing between posts under the lighthouse’s cursed glare. But Eggers’ confidence in drawing nail-biting tension through every scene is what exploits this cinematography’s potential. Often minutes go by without a word spoken as the camera creeps through the lighthouse’s broken infrastructure or when Howard soldiers through his manual labour where the gritty weather does the talking instead. This painful chalkboard-scraping patience helps foreshadow the film’s horrifying breaks of sanity, as Howard’s secret repressed past creates visions of him submerging in the sea surrounded by floating logs and his intimacy-yearning leading to him furiously masturbating to a crude doll while trying to envision a stranded mermaid.
The film, beyond its explicit surrealism, also finds identity in adoption of 1920’s style German Expressionism. While it doesn’t go as arthouse as to paint shadowed backdrops like Caligari, Eggers goes full-swing in intensifying shadow contrasts to conjure ghastly effects. Wake and Howard’s uncomfortable ice-breaker dinner toasts are shrouded in a black void fought off only by weak candlelight, with this dark stylistic effect meandering down the narrative to accompany distrust and outbursts between the two as they get drunker to pass a worsening deathly storm.
But style and pretentious substance can often erase a film’s relevance to the bargain bin, and it’s safe to say the Lighthouse wouldn’t be nearly as soul-piercing without its anvil-striking performances by Daefoe and Pattinson.
Daefoe gives a ruthlessly compelling show as a sea-slanged captain well past his days, donning a hefty accent and sly mannerisms to nail Wake’s identity with hefty monologues. This only makes his outbursts from superstitious frenzy and booming damning monologues all the more terrifyingly shaking. Pattinson initially struggles to keep up but makes it clear he’s far outgrown his Twilight days. In some ways he’s comparable, in a novice way, to Daniel Day Lewis’s Daniel Plainview. By this, he starts out vocally-restrained to withhold his desired social image, in this case withholding his violent past from one man than trying to speak an ocean of oil out of hundreds, but soon descends into his internal monster and loses control with breakdowns and blaring outbursts. In this Pattinson triumphs and is mesmerising, though clearly depends more on desperate rage to match up to Daefoe’s near-effortless experience.
The Lighthouse has a very simple premise but is at heart a complex manifestation of classic cinematic style with two talented actors thrown into a sea-swarmed underworld to deliver one of the most morbid psychological trips of the year. Every scene pulses with ambiguous fears and either piercing silence or deafening gritty sound to add to the character study heat. Howard’s sweaty dangerous work at the coal shed being accompanied with Tetsuo-levels of pounding metal-work and churning engines foreshadows a roaring tension inside the man about to explode while Wake remains shrouded in his own silent obsession with his lamp. The smacking rocky cliffs, haunting omen seagulls and creaking of the eroding lighthouse’s foundations also add to create a spectacular punchy cabin fever.
With this, a bucketful of admirable cinematography and some remarkable twists that refuse to give straight-answers to slow the rabbithole descent into insanity, The Lighthouse makes itself a triumph in surrealist psychological horror and tackles imaginative mise-en-scene grounds that would make David Lynche smile with his new lobster dinner to replace that gooey chicken.