The Lighthouse

If you enjoy reading my Spoiler-Free reviews, please follow my blog @ https://www.msbreviews.com

I love weird movies. The seemingly awkward moments, the apparently nonsensical ambiguity, or simply the pure WTF sequences... All of these leave me deeply captivated by what the story and its filmmaker are trying to transmit to their viewers. The Lighthouse is the most recent addition to the group of psychological horror films that will make you think, "what the hell am I watching?" Nevertheless, this is one of the most accessible "weird flicks" since most of the story is easily explainable.

Therefore, I hope this Robert Eggers' movie gets a successful home release. Usually, the general public heavily dislikes ambiguous films. Nowadays, people want everything at the palm of their hands before they even watch the movie (aka trailers). So, a film about two lighthouse keepers who go crazy, where dozens of scenes apparently make no sense (they do), can fail to catch the viewers' attention. However, it found mine. Filmed in black-and-white and with a 1.19:1 aspect ratio (almost squared), Eggers delivers a gorgeous-looking piece of cinema.

People tend to (wrongly) associate the use of black-and-white with "old movies," but it's really just another color palette. For example, Blade Runner 2049 and Mad Max: Fury Road use the color yellow in such a beautiful, eyegasmic way. Color can affect us emotionally, psychologically, and even physically, often without us becoming aware. The Lighthouse's black-and-white establishes the film's mood from the very beginning. A very somber, sad, dark environment, filled with creepy seagulls, and brutal weather conditions.

If I try to imagine the movie with color, it's not going to be very different from what it actually is. There's no sun, only tons of rain, wind, and waves. It's always cloudy, and inside the house, it's still dark and cold. So, even if Eggers decided to film with color, black, grey, and white would be the predomina...

“𝐾𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑠, 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑒?”

Time to spill the beans…’The Lighthouse’ is a masterpiece! I loved loved loved loved it! I loved every minute of it. One of my favorite movies of 2019 and I honestly don’t think anything can top it. A slow descent into madness that creeps into your subconscious and won’t be leaving anytime soon.

From the very first frame, I immediately knew this was going to be special. I was hooked throughout until the end credits.

Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson both deliver career defining performances. They play off each others insanity beautifully. I could tell just from the accents and dialect that plenty of homework went into making an authentic portrayal of the time.

Robert Pattinson is fantastic as a quiet and private lighthouse keeper that witness the madness slowly unfolding, but also feeds the audiences curiosity on revealing the strange happenings on the island. Pattinson is a chameleon when it comes to portraying characters.

Willem Dafoe, on the other hand, was mesmerizing as the old sea dog captain with a love for farting. His long and insane monologues are the main highlights, because it was so electrifying to watch it was hard not be captivated. He’s strict and often unpredictable, but once you see it, you won’t forget it.

I hope Robert Eggers continues making horror movies in the future, because right now he’s one of the best living directors working today. The slow-burn tension and lack of conventional scares seems to be his trademark so far. Every choice he made was so carefully thought out and the results is masterful. According to Eggers, they actually built a lighthouse from scratch and everything we see, including the weather, is genuine. Even if some tricky was used, it was so seamless I couldn’t tell what was fake.

I loved how the movie was shot; the dim black-and-white with the claustrophobic aspect ratio, giving it the appearance of a silent film born like a German expressionism - something you would’ve...

I was worried that my enormously high expectations for 'The Lighthouse' would set me up for inevitable disappointment, but to my relief and awe, it somehow exceeded them. This is an extraordinary, baffling, hypnotic, maddening, hilarious, disturbing, disorienting, arousing, absolute mindfuck of a film, drenched in mud and sweat and salt and booze and shit and semen and piss and blood, primal screams of rage and terror, the laughter of madmen and the sobs of the damned, the cry of seabirds and the roar of the sea and the cataclysm of gods and men at war. It haunts you long after it is over, swills in your mind like an aged whisky, and in the days since seeing it, I can't tell you how desperately I want to dive back in again. After delivering arguably the greatest horror film so far this century, Robert Eggers has created another insane American masterpiece, the kind of film dreams and nightmares are made of. It was worth every single second of the wait.

• Daniel Lammin

Read Daniel's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-the-lighthouse-robert-eggers-delivers-another-staggering-american-classic

A superbly made film about madness, isolation, alcohol, a pissed off one-eyed seagull, and farts

But, as we near'd the lonely Isle;

And look'd up at the naked height;

And saw the lighthouse towering white,

With blinded lantern, that all night

Had never shot a spark

Of comfort through the dark,

So ghastly in the cold sunlight

It seem'd, that we were struck the while

With wonder all too dread for words.

• Wilfrid Wilson Gibson; "Flannan Isle" (1912)

Lighthouses are endlessly suggestive signifiers of both human isolation and our ultimate connectedness to each other.

• Virginia Woolf; To the Lighthouse (1927)

The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm – the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the Offshore Lights you can live any story you want to tell yourself, and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind.

• M.L. Stedman; The Light Between Oceans (2012)

A manic fever dream fusing Greek mythology, Jungian psychology, and German Expressionism with Herman Melville and H.P. Lovecraft, by way of George Kuchar, Mike Kuchar, and Guy Maddin, The Lighthouse is about isolation, insanity, competitive masculinity, alcoholism, and farting. The second film from writer/director Robert Eggers, who exploded onto the scene with the masterful The VVitch: A New England Folktale (2015), The Lighthouse was co-written with his brother, Max Eggers, and is very loosely based on the "Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy" (1801), in which one of the two assigned keepers died, and it was over four months before relief could be sent. By the time someone did land, the still-living keeper had been driven completely insane. A bizarre film in just about every way, from its glorious visual and aural design to its grandiose acting to its jet black humour to its wonderful ambiguity t...

Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/qvEDkWC9MMk

“I’ve got no idea what I just watched, but I loved it” - those were my exact words as the credits rolled on The Lighthouse.

I’d been chomping at the bit to watch this ever since seeing the first trailer, and recently it’s finally became available for rent on YouTube. Starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson? What’s this weird looking square framed black and white movie all about I hear you say? Here’s the offical description:

Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.

With the same director as The VVitch at the helm you get a very good idea of the madness that is about to ensue. And oh boy does madness ensue. In what might be the most perfectly cast movie ever, Pattinson and Dafoe were absolutely the right choice for these roles. The characters they play as we meet them are somewhat stereotypical - Dafoe is the weatherbeaten man of the sea, and Pattinson is the guy with a murky past who might be trying to escape from something. Their relationship goes from dislike to begrudging respect to...well it’s hard to say what happens after that...

The artistic decision to film in black and white on 35mm film in an almost square ratio heightens everything. It feels claustrophobic, the characters stare directly at you at times, the framing is perfect, it’s a a sight to behold. This film reminded me of everything from silent films of the 1920s through to the creep-fest known as Begotten. Strap yourself in for a ride that will make you clench your teeth at the beautiful destruction.

As you can probably tell, I loved this movie. It won’t be for everyone as it’s very much an arthouse piece and doesn’t follow the standard norms for film, but I encourage everyone to give it a shot. You’ll either love it or hate it. As for me, I’m just gutted I never got to see this in a theatre because I reckon it w...

A cinematic portrayal of the human condition that is as unpleasant as it is intriguing.

Involving a storm, a small bit of cabin fever and a touch of lovecraftian mermaid mythos... comes 2019’s feature The Lighthouse directed by Robert Eggers written in part by Maxwell Eggers originally loosely based off of Edgar Allan Poe’s last known bit of writing of basically the same name. Taking out the elements of Poe This film follows two men one older one younger played by Robert Pattinson and William Dafoe in some very different roles... Cut off from the public during the storm psychological and about the downward spiral and the madness that follows... when reality gets mixed with loneliness, greed And blatant disrespect of nature... Filmed in black-and-white like The Witch which is Robert Eggers previous feature as it is slow in its pacing so it will not entirely be a film for everyone you’ll either love it or hate it but I prefer things that are in black-and-white over color for to me it breathes an atmosphere And latitude of another time In moments but I also feel like Robert Pattinson certainly shed by now his almost laughable sparkled-Sparkly Vampire renown role to this ragamuffin rough look hewn to his character as well as William Dafoe’s craggy pirate captain-ish look as well stellar performances by both... plus turn up the sound as you experience the films awesome sounds the film is eerie and well shot I actually think this film is better than The Witch I’m glad that I picked this film up I recommend it for other people as well and wonder what others think about the film...

To me this is a perfect film. The emotional ebbs and flows of the narrative wash over you and one moment you're laughing then dread overwhelms you. It's expertly crafted both technically and artistically. Even the sound design lingered with me for days afterward.

It's not a film for everyone. The narrative is far from typical, the dialogue is a heavy dialect, and it's one you have to be absorbed in. It's not a passive movie, it's one that challenges you to immerse yourself in it. But, if you're into something truly unique you will find this film to burrow deep into your psyche.