The Lighthouse

a rich and strange sea yarn in monochrome that overflows with Beckettian absurdity, as these men, perhaps both liars (literal gaslighters), look, while waiting for ‘relief’, into the abyss of both their elemental isolation & their infernal companionship.


The Lighthouse may be challenging, it may even be off-putting, but it's gutsy, accomplished and the kind of movie that sears into your memory.

The atmosphere is ugly, claustrophobic, hermetic, the images murky and relentless. There seems no doubt Eggers is an original and talented filmmaker, but he hasn't made it easy on the audience with this grim, forbidding movie.

As with The Witch, it's the atmosphere that seeps into you like sea brine. You don't watch this film, you are submerged in it. Expect to be spat out, reeling, from the cinema, clutching on to your sanity.

American writer-director Robert Eggers excels at transporting you into the past and putting you under the skin of those you meet there. Persuading you to be glad that you came is another matter.

The lewd, overwrought, Herman Melville-inspired dialogue is alternately mumbled and shouted, the intense, grand guignol performances more interesting as an experiment than conducive to eliciting meaning.

Brilliant acting but unless you enjoy alternative cinema this is not a film that you are going to enjoy. It is a slow slog.

As the film unfolded, I felt like I was slowly going insane alongside the characters. My anxiety and confusion galvanised into the most immersive of experiences.

Shot on black and white 35mm film, Eggers’ feature never loses its mysterious yet vibrant atmosphere.

Working in harmony, Mark Korven’s musical horror and Damien Volpe’s sound design consistently bubble under the surface, hinting at unsettling and unfolding motifs.