Mini Film Review – The Lighthouse

Yesterday I watched The Lighthouse; and it was kind of interesting! Directed by Robert Eggers, and starring Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, and Valeriia Karaman; The Lighthouse is a black and white film about two lighthouse keepers who begin to lose their sanity whilst stranded by a large storm. It was an interesting experience, but one whose point gets a little lost in the mist. I found the language used in the film rather hard to follow, as I tried to make sense of it. I was pretty much captivated by the end of the first act, right up to the film’s conclusion, but again I was struggling to make out what was going on. From that point of view, it looked less like a film, and more an advert expressing the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption. The language may have been lost on me, but the artistic visuals were something of a real treat. It was like watching an old horror film, mainly the 1968 adaptation of M. R. James‘s ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ (although at least this film had some form of understandable dialogue in it). The visuals were really well done, which were used to illustrate the many early metaphors of superstition; such as when the wind changes direction. And the way it portrayed the lighthouse as a sketch, to question if it was really there or not, was really cool. So, yeah, it’s a mixed film, but the two sides of the coin make it interesting enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen from start to finish!