The Lighthouse is a film that was presented in black and white and was released 2019. Robert Eggers is the director who also co-wrote it with Max Eggers. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson star in what is essentially a two-hander.
Two lighthouse keepers in nineteenth century New England are rather stuck together for several weeks on a remote island. It’s a contentious relationship between the two lead characters. It doesn’t help when Pattinson’s Winslow starts having disturbing visions of mermaids and tentacles. Dafoe plays the crotchety somewhat abusive senior worker named Wake and does so effectively.
The film is done in black and white, which was a good decision. The performances from both men were quite solid. The film is a bit slow though and takes quite a bit of patience. I found it to be a pretty peculiar movie in many ways and a little hard to actually enjoy. It is a unique cinematic experience and does little to cheer one up during a global pandemic. There is likely a lot to admire from a cinematographic standpoint, and it seemed to be pretty well-written. It’s just a hard movie for me to keep my attention totally devoted due to the pacing and the limited scenery.
Although this movie may not have appealed to my cinematic preferences, I bet more studious viewers would get something more out of it.
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