Logan Sork Film Reviews
The Lighthouse
There aren’t many films that make you actually think about what you just watched being released today. Most of them either focus on surface-level action or just explain their ideas and intentions to you. While there is nothing wrong with that, it is nice to do a little thinking yourself every once in a while, allowing you to come up with your own ideas and to have a different experience than everyone else watching the film. That is precisely what The Lighthouse does as it provides a cinematic experience all too rare these days, pushing you to do some actual thinking.
The Lighthouse is written and directed by Roger Eggers and stars Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe. The story follows two lighthouse keepers who are stationed at a lighthouse off the coast of New-England in the 1890s. The younger man, Winslow (Pattinson), is looking to earn money to start a new life and must perform hard labor under the command of the older and more experienced keeper, Wake (Dafoe). As he performs the backbreaking labor, he becomes curious as to why the older man won’t let him work the light. As the days go by, Winslow begins to notice strange phenomena occur seemingly before his very eyes. To keep his sanity, Winslow must learn to get along with his fellow keeper, lest he loses his sanity to the depths of the violent and malevolent ocean.
Perhaps what wills strike viewers the most when watching this film is just how unique the visual aesthetic and feel of the film is. Filmed in black and white cinematography and presented in a traditional aspect ratio, the film harkens back to the gothic films of the early days of cinema (think the classic Dracula and Frankenstein films). As a fan of those films, it was a really neat experience to watch this kind of movie in a modern multiplex and experience the same feeling audience members probably had watching those back in the day. The black and white cinematography makes the excellent lighting and shadows all the more noticeable and provides a unique feeling that color simply doesn’t offer. The dark atmosphere also gives the film an unrelenting sense of dread, leaving you uneasy for the entire time. Add to it the minimalistic, yet still stark looking, production design and you have a beautiful looking old-fashioned movie that looks even better thanks to modern filmmaking techniques.
Still, no matter how good the film looks, there’s always a risk when devoting an entire film to limited characters. If you are doing so, you need to make sure the actors playing those characters will have your audience engaged in their struggles. Thankfully, Pattinson and Dafoe are more than capable of doing so, as they deliver top-notch performances. I hope that people will watch this film and finally realize how good of an actor Robert Pattinson is. This film proves he’s more than just a sparkly vampire, as he gives a fantastic performance as the young lighthouse keeper harboring some personal demons. Also great is Willem Dafoe as the older keeper, whose hilarious oddball antics are undercut by the secrets that he harbors. Both have amazing chemistry and make the film even more engaging than it already is.
Another part of what makes this film such a unique experience is just how twisted and strange it is. By using the dark atmosphere and great performances, Eggers creates a strange tale of how madness can instill in someone and how it can distort a person’s view of reality. There are a lot of scenes in the film that feel strange and almost out of place, but when you take into consideration the ideas the film is presenting, then you begin to question the motives of the scenes for a different reason. These strange surreal scenes begin to become more frequent as the film goes on, causing you to question (much like the characters in the film) what is real and what is a result of hallucination. The film also brings a supernatural element to the table, yet never quite establishes it, leaving it up to you to determine if it is there or not. There aren’t many films these days that leave you hanging for answers and leave you to draw conclusions for yourself and I commend it for doing so.
As for any issues with the film, they mainly come from the fact that some of the set-ups and scenarios can be a little similar to films I’ve seen before and some pacing issues. There are a lot of ideas, such as the isolated location and potential supernatural elements, that feel very similar to other films. One such film is Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which also features an isolated location as well as supposed supernatural intervention. There are a lot of moments in this film that feel especially similar to that film and it did take me out of the film for a couple of moments. There are also some scenes that could’ve been trimmed down a bit, especially ones that touch upon ideas stated in earlier scenes.
Still, The Lighthouse is a cinematic experience that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. It’s not often I walk out of a film and question what I just watched for hours on end, formulating new ideas and theories about certain scenes almost every other moment. The experience alone was also excellent, the performances were excellent, and the dark atmosphere reminds me of the type of films only the early days of cinema could produce. Add to it the ambiguity of the film and you have a film that not everyone will get but will be a welcome treat to those who do.
8.5/10