The Lighthouse
John S.

Review by John S. Pro

The Lighthouse 2019

★★★★

Watched 03 Mar 2020

New lighthouse crewman finds the job to be hell-on-earth with his lone co-worker and superior keeping all the good tasks for himself. He says he's got it rough, rougher than even the new guy Ephraim (Pattinson) who toils and toils while the superior is rarely ever shown doing a task unless it's combined work (and he gets the easy part). Dafoe's Thomas Wake tends the light himself--against the code book--which remains a mystery: what is up there, and why is this man so intent on keeping the new guy completely out of that loop?

Tensions already high when a bad storm arrives. I mean never fuck with birds. The wind will change on your ass, and if you thought things were bad, wait until after you mess with avian creatures. Never-ending rain in the face and leaking, dripping into the keepers' housing. All wet, all wet, and lonely. Just a nightmare.

Photography is stunning. Whether hi- or lo-contrast, just awesome. Square format. The accents sure are weird. Eggers' dialogue comes from old texts, the writings of seafarers long past, and it shows (not in a bad way; if you like the language of the sea, Lapham's Quarterly spends an issue on it, called "The Sea." One of their best). Both characters full of wild ideas, and all of those might be correct. The narrative pulls viewers to and from each. They are a mess, not to be trusted. I think I like the ending, the promethean punishment, the mystery not quite ever spoken.

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