The Lighthouse
One of my very favorite quotes comes from Stanley Kubrick, who said the following, “The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning.” I wonder if it’s a favorite quote of Robert Eggers’s, as well, because his two films, “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse,” puts his characters in situations against nature, and they test the sanity of the individuals to a breaking point. He works in slow-burn cinema, and his slow-burns are tense to watch.
This film is as technically magnificent a film as you will experience this year. The black-and-white cinematography by Jarin Blaschke is crisp and alive with how it uses light and shadow to bring us into the dread that envelopes the world Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) and Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) inhabits. I could not help but think of the less-is-more approach camera of Val Lewton’s supernatural thrillers while watching the film unfold, and the choice to shoot it in “box” framing only enhances that effect as Thomas, a longtime lighthouse attendant, and Ephraim, a newcomer to the life, begin their time together. The other part of the technical equation is the sound. The horns heard at the lighthouse are as unsettling a sound effect as when we hear Danny going through the cavernous halls of the Overlook Hotel, and when combined with the dialects the actors recite their dialogue in, the sound design in the desolate seaside environment, and the subtle score by Mark Korven, the result is as chilling a horror film as I’ve seen in decades.
One of the things I connected with in “The Witch” was the idea that the family was on the outskirts of what looked like a dead forest, separated from people (deliberately so), and that presented dangers to them beyond the supernatural. “The Lighthouse” does the same thing, and while there are supernatural elements that become implied as the film progresses, the most terrifying things in the film are the psyches of Thomas and Ephraim, and a battle of wills that appears to take place between the grizzled veteran and the young man who is looking for a change from his previous occupation, and the elements that hit the lighthouse over the course of the film’s 110 minutes. Eggers enjoys putting his characters in claustrophobic settings that test their mental fortitude, and like the deeply religious family whose baby is taken early on in “The Witch,” Thomas and Ephraim are pushed to the brink of madness to where we question everything we know about these characters, especially when we realize Ephraim is not who he says he is. It’s a familiar setup for a tale of madness, but the way Eggers, Dafoe and Pattinson develop it, it’s completely engaging and exciting to watch.
Are there truly supernatural elements in this film? Or even “The Witch?” I think Eggers likes bringing supernatural into this story the same way Stanley Kubrick did in his adaptation of “The Shining.” In that masterpiece, Kubrick uses the supernatural bringing as a way of amplifying the mental stress of the Torrence’s isolation in the Overlook Hotel over the winter; do any of the things we see the Torrences experience actually happen? Eggers uses otherworldly elements in the same way in his films, leaving us with the anxiety that breaks up a family in “The Witch,” and questions on whether both of the characters in “The Lighthouse” even exist, or if one or the other is just a figment of their imagination. The narratives all hit familiar beats, but all of them are different, and unique, experiences. “The Lighthouse” might be the most surreal, and thrilling, one Eggers has given us to date.
