Review - The Lighthouse

Well folks, this is going to be one of those reviews where I figure out how the hell I feel about a film by writing about it. My viewing of The Lighthouse is one that's still relatively fresh with me but by having it stew in my brain for a while, I'm hoping I can work out how the hell I feel about it. The plot is a simple one, at least on the surface. Two men are dropped off on a remote island as lighthouse keepers, there to tend the lighthouse that provides the light that prevents the ruin of ships. Being an island with only two men on it, it's a desolate place. One could almost be forgiven for, I don't know, going a little mad sometimes? What I find interesting about the plot is how sparse it is, while also being almost entirely up for debate. There is very little in the way of traditional plot, yet what there is is fascinatingly vague. Sometimes the "it's all your interpretation" plot annoys me (see The Cloverfield Paradox or Wounds) but when done well (like in Mulholland Drive or Synecdoche, New York) there is little I enjoy more. Thankfully, The Lighthouse is in the latter category, where the ambiguities and creases in the details have only kept the film in my mind more as I've thought about it. Be prepared to get into arguments about what it all means folks!

This may end up quite a short paragraph because there are ostensibly only two performances in this entire film, with all other cast being glimpses of bodies or faces of beings who are not the core two. As the young lighthouse keeper is Robert Pattinson, long out of acting prison after a brief Twilight related stint. I never saw those films properly (I'm sure some day I'll make that mistake) but as a big fan of Good Time from 2017, I am fully on board with the work of Pattinson. Here, he is nominally the main character and his collapse into insanity is what I feel is the main joy of the film, seeing a secretive yet strange man turn into an utter maniac. Speaking of utter maniacs, Willem Dafoe is the senior lighthouse keeper, doing a turn as the human personification of a sea shanty with the world's most incomprehensible accent. He is an utter delight, bringing a performance so completely deranged that you can smell the salt, farts and booze on him. Together, they have an electric dynamic and while there is so much of merit around them, I think this film would be a shell without them. Dafoe described the filming process as them being "slaves to the camera" and that is spot on, them putting everything on the line for the sake of their performances. Their delivery of lines like "Why'd ya spill yer beans" echoes round my head still and I hope the batshit nature of their performances doesn't detract from awards attention 'cos they're both fab and deserve all the trophies they can carry.

Which takes us to the rest of the film and the reason I am finding this a hard film to recommend to non-film obsessives like myself. The film is presented in a square aspect ratio (meaning that the film looks like a square, like old films from the forties), as well as in black and white. I suggested going to see this to my flatmates and I shit you not, when I said it was a black and white film, one of the group said he would just wait until it was out in colour. The tone is also bonkers, it took me a while to get my head around it. It fits in the middle of a very strange triangle of comedy, horror and Greek myth. No, seriously, it might not make sense at first but after the ending and reflecting back, I could genuinely make a case for this as a mythological nightmare. On that note, this is not a film I feel adequate discussing after only one viewing. I would love a second viewing to see it and appreciate it anew, the issue is just that since I had to spend 3 hours total on buses to go see this film (got to love American public transport), it was a real pain in the arse. Still, it's not a film you'll treat as a "one and done", you will think about it and revisit it for years, that I can already tell. After all, there's a moment where (to try and describe it without spoilers) the film snaps itself open like a piece of rock, shows you the writing on the inside and then slams itself back together, denying to you it even happened, attempting to gaslight you in the only good way gaslighting has ever been used. It is a delirious film, that is aware of itself intimately and wants you to become so too, letting the film consume the place where your mind used to be.

I still feel like I have more to say about this film bubbling away under the surface but after just one watch, my critique wouldn't be developed enough. What I will say is that it is a film that will stay with you, whether you love it, hate it or are just perplexed by the amount of farting in it. No one makes films this strange in the (relative) mainstream anymore and when it comes out in the UK in January (sorry guys, you gotta wait a bit), it is well worth investigating for those prepared to take a very strange plunge. That's why I give The Lighthouse a