There's Always a Lighthouse, There's Always a Man, but this Time There's No City

Lots of free time, not sure what to do with it, trying to write more often, and I'm stuck in quarantine. Might as well use some of that time to watch some movies, right? Fortunately, I have access to Amazon Prime, and with that a fairly large uncatalogued of films I'd barely tapped until now (it was being used more often for watching TV shows). So here I was seeing what their fairly extensive library had to offer, and I stumbled across a curious title called The Lighthouse, an independent film from last year revolving around the growing conflict between a pair of lighthouse keepers. Sounded like an interesting one to check out.

Somewhere in the 19th Century, two men- Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) arrive at a lighthouse with a contract to oversee it for four weeks. The lighthouse is located on a remote island, the surrounding waters of which may or may not be inhabited by sirens and a kraken (it's a bit confusing). They go about their usual routines, doing the various tasks that need to be performed to maintain the lighthouse and chores that need to be performed on an everyday basis. But over time the boredom and repetitive work begins to mess with their heads. The fact that Wake seems to be keeping secrets doesn't help. When their replacements fail to arrive at the end of the four weeks, things only seem to get worse. Tensions mount between the two men as both start to lose their sanity.

Probably the most obvious touch in the film is its decision to shoot in black and white- which was actually a pretty good choice. Obviously the use of black and white gives the film an old-fashioned look, but it doesn't look like something you'd see in classical Hollywood. Instead, a lot of the film looks like something you'd expect to see from late 19th/early 20th century photographs of a lighthouse rather than an old movie. Structurally, The Lighthouse has a much closer resemblance to the European art films of the 1960's than anything you'd see from Hollywood. It seems to have traces of Robert Bresson and Ingmar Bergman, which makes the black and white all the more fitting. I don't think I can imagine this film being in colour.

Pulling off a minimal setting (the entire film being set in and around the lighthouse) with the cast limited almost entirely to two actors is no easy task, but The Lighthouse makes full use of these limitations. The film does a surprisingly good job of making the day-to-day lives of its protagonists seem compelling, even if some of the details can be harder to follow. Depictions of chores from repairing the roof to hauling coal convey a sense of boredom, frustration, and monotony, yet seem to really draw the viewer in. The tight spaces of the lighthouse itself are often used to create a sense of unease and disorientation that only heightens the Bergman-esque discomfort.

But while the film may have an interesting aesthetic, it's also just as much about sound. Diegetic sound is used to its full effect in conjunction with a haunting musical score that often includes suspiciously foghorn-like sounds. But when it isn't making use of its soundtrack or the various noises around the island, it's creating unease through silence. In fact a lot of the film's audio is made up of either diegetic noises or complete silence. Dialogue is present, but used sparsely. It actually takes some time before we hear anyone speak.

The two leading actors also do a very good job with their roles. Robert Pattinson has come a long way since Twilight. In The Lighthouse he fits into the role so well you could almost be forgiven for not recognizing him. Same with Willem Dafoe, who really developed a unique voice for Thomas Wake, though his thick accent may sometimes be hard to understand.

The Lighthouse is not an easy film to sit through, but it is one that is worth exploring if you are able to find it. I would recommend this to fans of art films from the 1960's, especially the works of Ingmar Bergman. In many ways, The Lighthouse feels like an homage to Bergman and some of his contemporaries (not as much Fellini or Antonioni in this one, though). But if even if, like me, you never really got into art cinema it's still an interesting experience.