"The Lighthouse" (2019) Directed by Robert Eggers #lighthouse #robertpattinson

"Keeping secrets are ye?"

Well this wasn’t quite as I expected!

The opening ten minutes sets the pitch black tone for this off kilter and oddball psychological horror that didn’t completely impress me but certainly disturbed me greatly. From the simple black opening credits announcing “The Lighthouse” we are immediately thrust into a black and white world coloured even darker, even blacker and particularly murky, misty and, setting the tone for the film, intensely loud. Waves crashing against the side of a boat approaching the shore of the island of the lighthouse, a continually loud foghorn that never, ever ceases, the constant ticking of a clock later in the piece, the sounds of driving rain, the creaking of floorboards and the rustic cottage attached to the lighthouse or the howling winds whipping up the storms that engulf this tiny island, the palette for your film is dark, blackly dark, and incredibly claustrophobically loud.

Seven minutes pass before a word is spoken between the only two characters in our bizarre play, and only then during an awkward and tense toast to the four weeks they’ll spend together managing and maintaining their remote rock adrift in a wintery ocean. The senior of the two warns his junior partner it’s “bad luck” not to share a toast and the ominous tones continue both during and after their first evening meal together as well as the silent passing of the crew they’ve been sent to relieve and the incredibly jarring breaking of the fourth wall as our silent “Wickies” or lighthouse keepers look directly at the camera, for an elongated stretch of time, and each with their own cold, dead eyes of dread firmly affixed for the audience to see. The older man appears calmer than the younger, with the junior partner looking near death, dishevelled and already utterly exhausted even before he sets about his arduous tasks of maintaining and caretaking the island, and almost single-handedly as the older, grizzled man is always watching. Always watching. A routine is set: incredibly hard and taxing work in the worst of wintery conditions followed by an evening meal and then dreams, nightmares, recollections, hallucinations and a spiral into a terrifying madness.

The above two paragraphs are taken from my original spoiler free review of the incredible "The Lighthouse" that I originally penned and published to my Medium blog site on 23rd September 2022 and which can be read in full and for free via my Substack site linked immediately below:

https://ramblingmusings666.substack.com/p/the-lighthouse-2019-4b955b798e57

This spoiler free review is also contained within my 7 volumes of "essential film reviews collection" (£4.49 per volume) or which can be read, and all 7 volumes too, for free, should you have an Amazon Kindle "Unlimited" package:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0C4HZSTTH?ref_=dbs_p_pwh_rwt_anx_b_lnk&storeType=ebooks

https://www.patreon.com/TheBlackfordBookClub
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