It’s the late 19th century, and Robert Pattinson has been sent to a remote Lighthouse to assist the caretaker, Willem Dafoe. Unfortunately, the two don’t get along at all, with Dafoe being an abusive, demanding boss, and Pattinson being an unhinged, rebellious employee. Things only get worse when a storm cuts them off from the rest of the world, and Pattinson begins to hallucinate mermaids and other bizarre, supernatural creatures washing up onshore. Will the two make it out alive, and with their sanity intact? Watch the movie to find out.
The Lighthouse is an interesting film to discuss. It’s a movie whose individual elements, from its black-and-white cinematography to its ear-splitting score and sound design, to its period-accurate sets and dialogue, I can appreciate. And yet, I was incredibly bored throughout most of the runtime. Its methodic pace, repetitive scenes, and unintentionally distracting directing choices added up to an intriguing, but disappointing, watch for me.
This movie comes to us from Robert Eggers, director of The Witch, and contains many of the same characteristics as that flick. A remote setting, characters going insane, period-accurate dialogue, all of these are in The Lighthouse, but, for whatever reason, they don’t work quite as well here. The dialogue, for instance, becomes extremely difficult to understand at some points. And while I did appreciate Robert Eggers having his actors use period-accurate dialogue, I didn’t appreciate how much of a hindrance to my comprehension that wound up being. Yes, the film is about madness, so some of the dialogue may intentionally be nonsense. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that I couldn’t understand what the characters were saying half the time. On top of this, while the two lead performances start strong, they get more and more over-the-top as the movie goes along, to the point where they wind up becoming unintentionally hilarious. Now, just to be clear, there are actual jokes in this movie that are meant to be laughed at. At one point, for instance, Robert Pattinson expresses his desire to have a steak thusly, “If I had a steak, I’d fuck it.” I recognize all that. I’m not talking about those intentional jokes. I’m talking about moments that are shot, scored and edited in such a way as to be scary, but aren’t. In one scene, for instance, Pattinson reveals that he doesn’t like Dafoe’s cooking, and the latter gives an incredibly lengthy rant, which is meant to be super intense, and to illustrate the madness, and the people in my audience were laughing. That’s not good. On top of this, the film’s plot is incredibly predictable for a psychological thriller. Yes, it throws new elements into the formula, such as black-and-white photography, period-accurate dialogue, and images from nautical mythology, but, ultimately, it is yet another story about people going crazy. And that’s not me dismissing the work. Robert Eggers stated in an interview with Rotten Tomatoes that that’s what the movie is; a story of two men going crazy. As such, it becomes a little harder to care, since you know exactly where the story is going to end. This is a problem I have with a lot of psychological thrillers, even good ones like Taxi Driver, Black Swan, and The Machinist. The plots are so simple, and often feature lots of the same devices, such as dream sequences and hallucinations, that they can all be boiled down to the dismissive statement, “people go crazy.” And I hate doing that, since effort has been put into this, and all the other works I mentioned, to create a unique atmosphere and aesthetics. But since there isn’t anything different about the plots of these films, other than the most superficial details, like setting, and the leads of this flick are so unlikable, those aesthetics feel wasted.
Is this my least favorite film of all time? Nope. Is this my least favorite film of the year? Not even close. It was clearly made by people with talent and vision. It just so happens that the product they created wasn’t to my liking. And I really hope you all can accept that. There is an unfortunate trend among cinephiles to dismiss people who don’t like obscure, artsy movies. Phrases like, “you just didn’t get it,” or “well, of course you didn’t like it, you only like dumb blockbusters,” get thrown around a lot. And I really hope that me disliking one artsy film doesn’t give you the impression that I somehow can’t appreciate art house cinema. Hasn’t the fact that I’ve written about very odd, experimental movies like Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Gozu and Valhalla Rising made it clear that I can, in fact, enjoy strange cinema? This is just my opinion on one movie, and I hope you can accept it. If you like The Lighthouse, good for you. I just didn’t.
liusviews 