About That "Lighthouse" Movie

Where to start with Robert Eggers' "The Lighthouse," a movie that is so utterly, uncompromisingly an original auteurist vision, steeped in centuries-old influences, and yet has a sense of humor and yen for the ghastly that is unmistakably modern?

Eggers, who famously went into the Canadian woods and built a period accurate farmstead to shoot "The Witch," has returned with his latest genre wonder. "The Lighthouse" is a meticulously constructed black and white film, shot in the squared 1.19:1 ratio, and takes place on the New England coast in the 19th century. Eggers and his collaborators built a working lighthouse in Nova Scotia, made use of vintage equipment, and fought inclement weather during a challenging shoot to get everything on film exactly the way Eggers wanted it. And frankly, only a single-minded, obstinate perfectionist could have possible made a film like "The Lighthouse." Frankly, it's too obscure, too niche, and too goddamn weird to exist otherwise.

We follow two lighthouse keepers, or "wickies," one old, Tom (Willem Dafoe), and one young, a newcomer named Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson), who are assigned to a remote lighthouse for a term of four weeks. They don't get along, and Winslow bristles at his poor treatment by Tom and the uneven distribution of work. Unfortunately, bad weather keeps them there much longer than four weeks, turning a bad situation into an intolerable one. It's not long before Winslow starts having visions of monsters and believes that there's something that Tom is keeping secret at the top of the lighthouse, where Winslow's been barred from entering. Certain ambiguities raise the possibility that Winslow may be going mad, that he's cursed, or that there are Lovecraftian eldritch horrors at work.

Yes, the dialogue is all period accurate and full of obscure metaphors. And yes, for the first part of the film, the cinematography is so focused on the existential cold and the misery that it feels like Eggers is aping beloved art house director Bela Tarr. However, "The Lighthouse" is really very watchable. As you'd expect from the insane lengths the filmmakers went to, the visuals are incredible, full of murk and mystery and evocative imagery. Initially, "The Lighthouse" could be mistaken for a film from the 1930s, with its beautifully lensed landscapes and the carefully lit closeups of Pattinson and Dafoe. And then the violence starts, violence far more explicit and nasty than you'd ever see in anything from the period. And then the rude and absurd moments of humor, like Tom's recurring flatulence, and a fight over Winslow refusing to admit he likes Tom's cooking. Then there's the sexuality - barely obscured, fleshy, dripping, Cronenbergian perversity of the highest order. And soon you realize, Eggers' influences are stretching a lot further back than Lovecraft and the New England maritime folklore of the late nineteenth century. The character tropes and the cosmic mechanisms at work are the stuff of ancient Greek creation myths and tragedies, if not even more primordial cautionary tales. And it's all terribly entertaining, fascinating stuff.

"The Lighthouse" is one of those movies that it's irresistible to want to pick apart for allegorical meanings. We can't be sure anything happened literally after Winslow arrives at the lighthouse, and he could easily represent any number of things. However, it's the performances of Dafoe and Pattinson that really flesh out the central struggles and conflicts, giving them enough tetchy humanity to be compelling. Pattinson does strong work in a very physical, demanding role, where he constantly looks exhausted and frustrated. Dafoe, however, is positively delightful as the salty old Tom with his incessant bad habits, tall tales, and dire warnings. Eggers gives him a hair-raising monologue full of blistering insults and portents of watery doom, delivered all in one glorious take. Putting aside all the monsters and mythology, just watching the two actors go at each other should be more than enough to keep audiences interested. And then there's the wild, hairpin twists and turns of a plot that just keeps getting more and more nuts even as it gets more and more artsy fartsy.

There are a lot of films and filmmakers to draw comparisons to, but in the end "The Lighthouse" is its own brand of psychological horror and fantasy, made by someone who not only knew what they were doing, but knew what was required to make it happen, and refused to compromise. Everything from the maddening foghorn to the vicious seagulls is perfect. It's gratifying to know that there are still filmmakers like Robert Eggers out there, willing to do what it takes to achieve this. And honestly, it's also more than a little disturbing.
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