Robert Eggers’ first film, “The Witch” was one of the best films and biggest surprises in my schedule for TIFF 2015. So there was a lot of anticipation for his follow-up “The Lighthouse”. It proved to be the first WTF film of this year, although I suspect not the last.
Like his earlier film, “The Lighthouse” is shot in black and white and there’s an incredible attention paid to lighting, dialogue, sound design and costume. It’s a film with a huge amount of texture on screen, right down to the jagged faces of the two leads — Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson (Both looked like they’d stepped out of a photograph from that period). The two play lighthouse keepers sent to maintain a station on a bleak, windswept island in the Atlantic in the 1800’s.
At the beginning, Dafoe’s character is the controller, forcing Pattinson to do the most menial and back-breaking work at the station, preventing his younger colleague from accessing the lens of the station. Over time, the lens takes on mythic proportions.
Over the next few weeks, Pattinson is confronted by both the real (increasingly aggressive gulls) and the unreal (visions of tentacled creatures and mermaids). The two station-masters descend deeply and rapidly into madness.
“The Witch” had a similar descent into madness, but it felt like it had a much tighter focus than its successor. There is much to admire here, but it also raised many questions about the story and Eggers’ intent. It’s worth seeing, but it feels like I need to go back to it to fully appreciate it.
At the beginning, Dafoe’s character is the controller, forcing Pattinson to do the most menial and back-breaking work at the station, preventing his younger colleague from accessing the lens of the station. Over time, the lens takes on mythic proportions.
Over the next few weeks, Pattinson is confronted by both the real (increasingly aggressive gulls) and the unreal (visions of tentacled creatures and mermaids). The two station-masters descend deeply and rapidly into madness.
“The Witch” had a similar descent into madness, but it felt like it had a much tighter focus than its successor. There is much to admire here, but it also raised many questions about the story and Eggers’ intent. It’s worth seeing, but it feels like I need to go back to it to fully appreciate it.
No comments:
Post a Comment