The Lighthouse ★★★★

A masterfully made and painfully unenjoyable film that would be just as well suited to being titled The Gaslight House or Seamen’s Semen.

It’s the 1890’s (if you didn’t know, please direct your attention to the high-contrast orthochromatic black and white film which was made popular during that time) and off the coast of New England, Ephraim an apprentice “wickie” (fancy old name for a lighthouse keeper) played by Robert Pattinson begins a four week stint tending a mysterious lighthouse long-maintained by seasoned wickie Thomas (Willem Dafoe). After a treacherous storm prevents Ephraim’s relief ship from reaching them, he and Thomas are forced to continue maintaining the lighthouse as well as their sanity as cabin fever (and surely alcohol poisoning) sets in.

I can’t think of a movie that elicited so much appreciation and disgust from me simultaneously. From the incessant foghorn to the ferociously lit and over-the-top monologues, to the full frontal of a mermaid's vagina, this movie was an assault on the senses. Seriously, I could go the rest of my life without watching Robert Pattinson test the consistency of Willem Dafoe's sperm. 

BUT... man this was amazing. The craft at work here is masterful which says volumes as this is only Egger's second feature film. He manages to fully recreate (in this case, and with the help of his incredible team, quite literally) a time and place that most of his viewers have never seen or spared a second thought for and make it feel tangible and painstakingly lived in. I was shocked to learn that this lighthouse and all the rooms within were actually built for this movie. Most of the weather that these two characters deal with is the ACTUAL WEATHER that these actors filmed in. WHICH MEANS the crew had to build this entire set in a place where that kind of stormy nonsense goes down! That in and of itself is a cinematic feat.

Dafoe and Pattinson give career defining and career shifting performances (respectively). At one point Willem Dafoe literally eats dirt and Pattinson convinces us that a tiny sculpture is more tantalizing than any harbor wench could ever be. I say that almost jokingly... but not quite. Their mastery of this foreign yet strangely familiar sailor dialect is just mind-blowing. I could listen to Pattinson complain about Dafoe's faaaaarts for way too long and Dafoe's commitment to all out "fire and brimstone" chef is one of the most incredible monologues of the movie.

However, performances and set design aside, the brilliance and horror of this movie is that as viewers, we descend into madness with Pattinson fairly quickly but slowly enough that each step of the way kiiiind of feels relatable. As he goes off the deep end, so do we. The laws of man and land fall away and sailors stories of sirens and possessed birds take hold of the subconscious. Let me just say that at no point on Day 1 would I, even a LITTLE bit, humor the idea of a crazy old man telling me that these birds are old sailors, but by the 5 day mark (or was it five weeks?) you're DAMN right I'm leaving those bastards alone. As reality stretches, what would've been absurd 30 minutes prior now seems like common sense.

As my co-host stated, this movie is a reminder that a film playing in the average theater can still be a piece of art. It's a movie that, by design cultivates fervent discussion, theorizing, and technical awe. All that said, the truly wonderful thing about this movie is it's open-endedness. You can take this story at face value. You can also believe that Tom is reliving some twisted godly punishment in which he repeatedly murders his older self only to find it was all for nothing. You can believe that this is some graphically disfigured retelling of man's struggle against nature and the power of the human spirit despite the fragility of the mind. There are endless ways to interpret The Lighthouse, many of which are valid, but through all of them there is one consistency; At sea, either everything is real or nothing is and it doesn't really matter. By the end of the film though, regardless of how you interpret it, you want to see what's up on top of that shiny, mystical phallus just as badly as *deep breath* Ephrain Thomas Possibly Wake Winslow Howard does which is why I'm going to be taking the next available ship to revisit The Lighthouse as soon as I can.