the Lighthouse review

[Westside Steve]

The Lighthouse
A 24
R                     110 min

Gang, given the wide variety creative endeavors we call art, it isn’t often that I am surprised by a motion picture  but THE LIGHTHOUSE written produced and directed by Robert Eggers certainly caught me unaware. As a matter of fact none of the descriptive blurbs I’ve seen in any of the trailers really do justice to the subject matter here. If there is such a category I would put it under surreal psychological drama. I think I should issue my standard spoiler alert just for the fact that this is such a left-of-center film it would be more fun, probably, to experience it without any preconceived notions like I did.
Here are some of my random thoughts. The film stars Willem Dafoe who is no stranger to accepting some very odd roles and Robert Pattinson who, even though I don’t blame him for the dismal TWILIGHT series, has never appealed to me. 
Patterson is Ephraim Winslow or Thomas Howard depending upon the chapter of his life in focus, and Dafoe plays the grizzled lighthouse keeper, or Wickie, Tom Wake, the apprentice and master of a remote station in the late 19th century.
The second thing to strike the audience is the look of this film. Shot in stark black-and-white the entire production has a disturbing look of decay upon the limited scenery, consisting of the living quarters, the tower and a few yards around it ending at the shore of a bleak and violent ocean. Actually the very first thing I noticed was the ratio in which this thing was shot. Most television and movie productions are shot in a rectangular frame a bit wider than they are tall, right? This one is square which gives the entire film a strange look.
The story itself is pretty basic. Trapped on the storm tossed and secluded lighthouse the men fall prey to cabin fever and slowly lose their minds though Wake seems to have lost a great deal of his prior to the arrival of Winslow.
Adding to Winslow’s unraveling psyche arr visions and sexual fantasies concerning mermaids and sirens screaming in the rocks around the light station.  
I’m going to recap one of the scenes just as an example of the craziness that makes up the story.
After whatever chores are completed comes recreation time which consists basically of drinking copious amounts of hard liquor and dissolving into erratic bouts of laughter singing dancing arguing and brawling. After a particularly violent fight Winslow beats Wake into submission ties a rope around his neck and leads him out of the lighthouse dog style, commands him to crawl into a hole in the ground and begins to shovel dirt over the older man. That’s just one of the many WTF moments in THE LIGHTHOUSE just to give you a vague idea of the nature of this project.
THE LIGHTHOUSE certainly defies classification but even though it won’t be described as an enjoyable experience it is compelling and hard to look away from. I’m guessing that fans of William Burroughs, or anyone who enjoys things from completely out of left field, will be intrigued by this one. On the other hand you could just as easily despise every second of it. You’re on your own folks.
A-

 

[The Gipper]

I found it unwatchable, and discontinued doing so.