By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Robert Eggers
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson and Valeriaa Karaman
Rating: Excellent
Robert Eggers, Director of “The Witch”, brings “The Lighthouse”, his second feature film and once again he delivered.
The movie takes place in New England around the 1800´s and tells the story of Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) a young Lighthouse Keeper who is sent to a remote island to work with the Main Lighthouse Keeper Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe).
Eventually the two of them will begin to have a certain bond that will eventually lead them to the brink of schizophrenia, madness and at the same time there will be a struggle of power between the two characters that eventually could lead them to either destruction or survival.
What made “The Lighthouse” an original film was the concept itself. We have seen before how the themes of power struggle and madness are dealt but not at this dimension and Robert Eggers did a wonderful job creating this characters.
The script written by Eggers and his brother Max also goes deep in the excesses and consequences of the decisions we make as human beings and themes like paranoia and madness.
What made this movie very interesting is the fact that it is in Black and White; This makes it more original due to the fact that it captures the gloomy and sordid atmosphere of being on a remote island constantly dealing with storms.
Again Willem Dafoe delivers an incredible performance, so as Robert Pattinson who I think has the best performance of his career so far. This young actor in recent years has shown that with good material can deliver and he proved it here.
There is no doubt that Robert Eggers is a born talent and I must say that he is going to one of the great filmmakers of the psychological horror genre.
"The Witch" is a great movie but here with "The Lighthouse” took his craft to another level and we see a promising career here in Eggers.
The only thing I can say about this movie is that it is not for everyone; I consider this movie for people who really love cinema and it´s a completely artistic film. You can see a lot of influence of Luis Buñuel's cinema due to the surrealism that this film presents and how Eggers handled topics such as claustrophobia and hallucination.
The Cinematography and the Editing were essential for “The Lighthouse” to work and each element has a reason for being which also makes it special.
If you are going to see it, I recommend that you have a lot of patience and be very prepared since it has a slow pace and this can be an issue for some viewers.
The End of "The Lighthouse" is undoubtedly one that will the audience will be asking themselves a lot of questions since it´s open for many interpretations.
“The Lighthouse” had great ovations at the Cannes and Toronto Festivals this year and I can understand why. The performances of Dafoe and Pattinson were a delight and I hope we can see more movies like this.
I think Willem Dafoe could be a big surprise next year´s awards season and we might see Pattinson in a potential Supporting Actor Category.
With that being said, I highly recommend "The Lighthouse" which is without a doubt one of the best films of this 2019.