A
thick sea fog obscures the landscape. The keening cries of circling gulls fill
the air. Indistinct shapes slip slowly in and out of focus. Can you be sure of
your senses?
So
begins and ends Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, a film so awash with
sea spray, mystery, and uncertainty, that you can almost taste the harsh, salty
mist on your tongue.
Shot
largely at Cape Forchu, Nova Scotia, Canada, and based around a 20-metre high
lighthouse specially constructed for the production, the film tells the tale of
two keepers tending their isolated post in 19th century New
England. As the weeks pass, and the storms set in, their relationship and their
grip on sanity frays like wet rope racing through calloused fingers.
The
story is a duplicitous, deranged duet between the younger novice keeper Ephraim
Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and his senior Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe). Ephraim
is closed, taciturn, and evasive, with secrets and longings beyond his current
situation. Wake meanwhile is garrulous, ferocious, and strict – we first meet
him loudly breaking wind, and he seems the very embodiment of a crusty, cussed
seadog, almost to the point of parody. Yet neither man is quite who they seem,
and the viewer is left increasingly unmoored between two highly unreliable
characters as perspectives shift and blur, with no objective witness to confirm
our interpretation of the events.
The
only female character is a hallucinatory mermaid (Valeriia Karaman), a
recurring source of both fascination and fear in Ephraim’s masturbatory
fantasies, his attraction to her seeming to parallel his ambivalent feelings
regarding Wake. The tortured relationship between the two men is by turns
Oedipal, confessional, homoerotic and antagonistic, Pattinson’s pretty but
increasingly drained youth duelling with Dafoe’s angular, weathered face and
sinuous, rolling beard.
At
times, their interactions almost resemble a bleak domestic sitcom, as they
bicker over chores and squabble over cookery (with Wake almost comically
heartbroken when he finds that Ephraim hates his lobster stew). The
old-fashioned, nearly square aspect ratio of the film serves to increase the
tension and claustrophobia, trapping the characters in a tight box rather than
the broad horizons of contemporary widescreen.
At
the heart of their dispute is Wake’s possessive ownership of the light itself.
He refuses his covetous junior any access to the top of the tower, where he
seems to spend his nights in almost atavistic worship of the lantern’s
power.
The
film is not subtle in its many cultural allusions. Wake makes explicit
reference to Prometheus, and the source of the disagreement between the two
protagonists appears to mirror the Titan’s desire to steal fire from the Gods.
Prometheus is not the only mythological figure alluded to either, with Wake
appearing to visually morph into some sort of Protean sea-god in one
particularly wild moment during their struggles.
There
are also clear nods to Herman Melville, in both the dense semi-biblical
language used, and the ambiguity underlying the frustrated, tense and tangled
male relationship depicted. The sea-bound setting also provides ample
opportunity for suggestions of the slimy Cthulhuian horrors of H.P. Lovecraft,
with an added seasoning of Freudian psychosexual symbolism on top for good
measure.
It
is testament to the skilful execution of The Lighthouse that
it does not crack under the weight of these pretensions. Eggers’ direction is
assured and ambitious, seeming undaunted by the challenges of the screenplay
(which he co-wrote with his brother Robert, very loosely based on an unfinished
fragment by Edgar Allan Poe, as well as the historical Smalls Lighthouse
Incident in Wales).
The
astonishing performances of the leads are captured exquisitely by Jarin
Blaschke’s silvery, atmospheric black and white cinematography. The look of the
film deliberately draws on 19th century photography, shot using
orthochromatic film (which is sensitive only to blue and green light). It also
recalls the dark etching style of artists such as Gustave Dore, with one
striking scene even explicitly restaging the painting Hypnosis (1904)
by symbolist Sascha Schneider.
Mark
Korven’s unnerving soundtrack almost becomes an additional character in itself,
deliberately blurring the line between sound effect and score. Foghorn blasts
drift into atonal drones and bursts, at times recalling the way Stanley Kubrick
used existing avant-garde classical pieces in The Shining (1980).
(Kubrick’s masterpiece is also visually recalled by a brief axe pursuit, and in
the slightly surreal, alienating tone of the film.)
As
with Eggers’ 2015 debut feature The Witch, The
Lighthouse is perhaps unlikely to please all audiences, with its
mysterious, shifting narrative and measured pace. However, for those prepared
to sink into the strange depths of its watery embrace, it is a unique and
richly rewarding experience, and, like its predecessor, demonstrates just
how broad and fascinating the horror genre can be.
