26 Feb 2020

Review - The Lighthouse

From At The Movies, 7:33 pm on 26 February 2020

A few years ago, writer-director Robert Eggers dazzled the art-houses with a bleak, scary bit of folklore called The Witch set in early New England.

I'd not heard of Eggers before, but I wasn't surprised to learn that one of his first short films was based on the Edgar Allan Poe shocker, The Telltale Heart.

Eggers is clearly at home among Nineteenth Century folk-tales, and he steps it up in his latest, simply called The Lighthouse.

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Photo: Screenshot

Lighthouse stories were not uncommon in the early days of radio and low-budget movies - often two people trapped in a single set with the sound-crew providing wind, waves and thunder in the background.

Actually, that's not a bad description of the setup of this lighthouse.

Two men - heavily bearded Willem Dafoe and strongly-moustached Robert Pattinson - arrive on a small island to man the lighthouse.

They pass the previous tenants on the way to the boat heading home. No words are exchanged.

The senior man tends the wick of the warning light - hence the nickname "wicky" to describe a lighthouseman - while the junior man, who calls himself Winslow, does the manual labour.

Much of this involves fetching loads of coal in a wheelbarrow to fuel the mechanics of the light.

It's bleak, made even more so by being shot in icy black and white, with the framing almost entirely square - Academy ratio, they call it. The weather is unrelentingly bad, and the length of the pair's stay is clearly dependent on when a boat can reach them.It might take a few weeks, it might take longer. So all you can do is try and make the best of things. Willem Dafoe plays Thomas, who's the chattier of the two, particularly after he's had a few drinks.

He wonders why Winslow suddenly decided to stop working in the lumber yards up north and take up wickying?

But Thomas only wants to know so much. The last thing he needs is young Winslow burdening him with confidences.

The constricted space of a lighthouse, he says, is no place for spilling the beans.

Thomas and Winslow may be reluctant to delve into any sort of personal history. But there are any number of tasty snippets of maritime lore that Thomas is more than willing to share.

The well-known superstition that gulls are the souls of departed sailors, for instance. The ever-present threat of mermaids. And of course the chance that a careless wicky can be driven insane by the light itself.

This is a film in which any of these events can take place - not least the onset of madness - as against all advice, confidences are shared, beans are spilled and our two heroes become ensnared in a tale of mystery and imagination. All very Edgar Allen Poe, in other words, but with its own distinct flavor.

Director Robert Eggers offers his two actors every challenge, and it's no surprise that the fearless Willem Dafoe is equal to anything thrown at him. He was nominated for an Oscar for his work.

But Robert Pattinson is equally strong. The pretty-boy days of the Twilight movies are a distant memory.

It really is like nothing you've seen before, and it will leave you shattered. It's been a while since that's happened in a movie, I have to say.

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