The Lighthouse (2019)

In another time and place, The Lighthouse would have been told around the fire by the village elders, hearkening back to a time when Gods walked the Earth before mankind. The story would have been passed from storyteller to storyteller, changing in content and in moral to suit the time and place that its wordsmiths had assumed. As luck would have it here, Robert Eggers relays this story of the two “wickies” like a silent-era epic, full of bold and dramatic black-and-white photography that reminds the viewer of a Goya painting mixed with Mathew Brady’s daguerreotypes from the Civil War. Each image does not necessarily follow a strict chronology; rather, the story becomes an abstract composite of like and unlike images that relay greater truths about loneliness, lies, masculinity, the supernatural and the superstitious. In this way, Eggers calls back to the epics of Homer, whose disjointed narratives often eschewed the linear for scenes that set up philosophical and psychological points about the story as a whole. Eggers also has a sense of humor about his narrative – I laughed as much as I recoiled from the screen.

Pattinson and Dafoe match each other blow by blow until neither has anything left to give. The film demands so much from them and they comply ably and without reservation. Watching them dive into the madness of the lighthouse setting was astounding – no narrative choice was left uninvestigated because of something as petty as the actors’ vanity. The Lighthouse doesn’t surprise the viewer as much as it does without Pattinson and Dafoe going to war with each other, then learning to give and take, then battling once more

The Lighthouse is a mythic clash between two men, one of whom could represent Proteus, the ancient and selfish keeper of knowledge, and the other Prometheus, the bringer of fire and knowledge to mankind; or, perhaps the two men represent the ideological divide between old and young; maybe I’ve looked too closely and made nonsense out of what is a simple tale of madness. The Lighthouse succeeds because the story it tells and how the telling occurs could contribute to any and all of these interpretations. Come for the atmosphere and beautiful compositions, and to watch two actors at the top of their game; stay for a mythos that would satisfy even the most ancient of Greeks.