Robert Eggers (“The Witch”) is one of many young American filmmakers, along with Ari Aster (“Midsommar”), Barry Jenkins (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) and Trey Edward Shults (“Waves”), in this fairly new wave of A24-produced, critically acclaimed and visionary independent films. Like Aster, Eggers is an incredibly meticulous and calculated horror/drama director whose vision is so clearly translated onto screen that it is almost annoying there are not any objective flaws. In other words, “The Lighthouse” is the newest addition to A24’s long catalog of praised “masterpieces” and it is almost predictable because of this; although it absolutely deserves its place in said catalog.
“The Lighthouse” stars now indie darling Robert Pattinson (“Good Time”) and the legendary Willem Dafoe (“Motherless Brooklyn”) as two lighthouse keepers, Dafoe being the older and more experienced keeper and Pattinson being the rookie. It is the usual descent into madness that we see from these types of films, although this one is accompanied by a killer nautical aesthetic and beautiful black-and-white photography. In addition to this, the aspect ratio is set at 1.19:1 and older lenses were used to mimic the look and feel of early cinema, and it absolutely works. The score by Mark Korven (“The Witch”) is atmospheric. The cinematography by Jarin Blaschke (“Fray”) is slow and steady. The editing by Louise Ford (“Thoroughbreds”) is patient when it needs to be and fast when it has to be. The performances by Pattinson and Dafoe compliment all these aspects perfectly, especially accompanied by stellar period-accurate dialogue that makes audiences wonder why they have not seen Dafoe play a pirate before. On a side note, cinema needs more nautical pirate stuff at the moment. The film is both a psychological horror film about the loneliness, horniness and rivalry of two men who have nothing but each other and their alcohol, as well as a comedy about the loneliness, horniness and rivalry of two men who have nothing but each other and their alcohol.
However, with all this being said, the film more or less ends up going according to plan. Not to say that it is predictable, but more so unsurprising. It goes to places that one would not necessarily expect but, once having gotten there, audiences are not necessarily shocked either. This may be a bit harsh, but it is almost as if, when people equate the making of Marvel films to a conveyor belt, this is the equivalent to that, but if the conveyor belt’s mode was set to “visionary psychological horror film by acclaimed indie director.” Eggers’ contemporary directing colleagues such as Jenkins, Shults or the Safdie Brothers (“Good Time”) have a sense of spontaneity and an almost charming imperfection to their directing that Aster and Eggers do not quite possess. It is not that this spontaneity should be required of all filmmakers, It is just that it feels more aggressively absent with these two filmmakers in particular. It is unquestionably great, but the fact that it is “unquestionable” is the one problem.
Image from A24 via YouTube
