The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse is a film where atmosphere is everything and the story is nothing. After the interesting and successful The Witch, Eggers had a free hand and he took advantage of it in his own way. He mocks the popcorn audience with their ideas of horror full of jumpscares and ghosts. Eggers is perhaps the only director who not only heard of Lovecraft and read something from him, but also thought about his work and was inspired by his theoretical foundations. Sartre already knew that hell is not devils, but other people. Put two ultimate sociopaths on a deserted island, give one an illusion of power, and expose the other to humiliation and the result will arrive soon enough. There is nothing, only loneliness, and boredom spiced up by memories of the sound of crushing human bones and failed relationships. Sexual frustration, bitterness, and rising levels of hatred supported by the distillate in the blood. The raging water element invigorates the imagination, just like a superstitious sailor's tales. Eggers impressively works with mythological references, with image and sound, and cleverly avoids literalness. Both actors reward him with excellent acting, the kind you don't see often. All in all, The Lighthouse is one of the most impressive horror films I have had the opportunity to see. Overall impression: 95%. (2022-02-15)

In its reconstruction of 19th-century life and visual style of old films, The Lighthouse is an unprecedented curiosity made with great care and, in one view, makes perhaps as much sense (and is thus as carelessly blind) as a drunken sailor who has read Moby Dick and a few paragraphs of Greek mythology (particularly the story of Prometheus) and psychoanalysis (you reach the id only after pacification of the controlling superego). The plot stands on water, the relationship between the two men on alcohol. Instead of drama or any character development, there is only the building of an atmosphere which, in the end, leads to nowhere and serves no purpose; it is not legitimised by any unifying theme to which the film would adhere. It simply just is. The vagueness, eccentricity and signs of cognisance of the film’s pulpiness give the impression of being an intentional act on the part of the screenwriter, an attempt to sell a simple, self-regarding horror story to dramaturgs of A-list festivals. When everyone finds something in a film, that does not necessarily mean that there is actually something to be found in it. Due to the degree to which it depends on its two actors and sound effects, I would rather see The Lighthouse in the form of an absurdist stage play in which the riveting acting performances could overcome the terrible repetitiveness, predictableness and utter lack of flow. 55% (2020-01-03)

Proteus and Prometheus in the shadow of Poe and his Maelstroms, gradually pulling in those with demons in their souls? Or the pages of Melville, Stevenson, Lovecraft, Beckett, and Pinter, drenched in salty sea foam? Or, as the authors of the "weird tale" themselves claim, a story that Freud and Jung would furiously munch popcorn over? Perhaps it’s just two lighthouse keepers with cabin fever, alternating between masculine and feminine roles, getting drunk on honey and turpentine, and masturbating over the magic of the Fresnel lens? Who knows what we actually witnessed. After all, 130 years have passed, and the maritime message from New England has been handed down so many times that the truth now only barely intersects with a good story. It’s striking, among other things, in how the protagonists achieve extreme physical expression through different acting methods (such as Pattinson’s masturbation over mermaids and sea fruits, or Dafoe’s curse with bulging eyes that leaves no doubt about his culinary skills). In any case, it’s a solid splash of a film, with its genre ambiguity adding to its charm. (2024-09-04)

A very empty exhibition of a talented machine to build a thick atmosphere; you can’t deny its depiction of period realism and the intentionally obsolete formal approaches (static shots, details, expressive acting, precise geometric composition), but it has absolutely nothing to offer the viewer seeking a meaningfully organised narration or some sort of distinctive process. The Witch headed somewhere and tied a loop around the viewer, who had set certain expectations, but The Lighthouse is self absorbed from the first to the last scene and never changes its nature and the pressure on the audience – and though in itself this isn’t annoying, it’s certainly not remarkable or in any way as subversive as Eggers wants it to be. 60% (2020-01-18)

The Lighthouse is about nerdy form, great actors and the director’s fearlessness in experimentation and ambition to do something that had never been seen before. The sound track is astonishingly engaging and almost even scary with the deep droning of the lighthouse. The cool black-and-white 4:3 composition is reminiscent of horror movies from the early 20th century. The depressing confining atmosphere of the remote, foggy and windy exterior and the damp and stinking interior. And the conflict between two men that doesn’t take all of these circumstances into account. Their drunken talk isn’t very stimulating, but it serves well to characterise the men and the place at the time. (2020-01-08)