The Lighthouse (2019) ★★★★★
In the 1890s, two lighthouse keepers are alone on an unnamed and mysterious island in New England. One of them (Willem Defoe) is a grizzled veteran 'wickie' who is joined for a month by someone new to the profession (Robert Pattinson). When a storm hits and they are stranded on the island, alcohol consumption increases, tempers fray, and the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred.
I thought Robert Eggers had peaked with his astonishingly good debut, The Witch, but it seems he has hit pay dirt again with this compelling and disturbingly claustrophobic follow-up.
Willem Defoe delivers one of the best performances of his long and distinguished career while Robert Pattinson seems to be channelling Daniel Day Lewis for a powerhouse acting display which should silence his naysayers.
Shot in stark monochrome in the unusual 1.19:1 aspect ratio and with a complex and thoughtful screenplay, this delivers on aesthetic, emotional, and intellectual levels. As he showed with The Witch, Eggers again created a completely convincing period setting – the costumes, make-up, and production design are phenomenally good – and the dialogue between the two men could have been written by Edgar Allen Poe.
It's a film I intend to revisit soon (I streamed this on Now TV and ordered the Blu-ray the next day) and will watch many times to understand the sociological, mythological, and philosophical themes.
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