Review: Two men lose their minds with seagulls in The Lighthouse
Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson starring in ‘The Lighthouse’. || Photo courtesy of A24.
Have you ever called the damning power of Triton upon another man because he says he doesn’t like your cooking?
Ever been stranded on an island tending a lighthouse for a torturously indefinite time period (“Five weeks? Two days? Help me to recollect…”) that feels so long you’ve been driven to drink kerosene with your lone companion who you can’t stand?
Ever snapped, grabbed a seagull by the throat and bashed it to death because it just wouldn’t stop looking at you?
Robert Eggers’ second film, The Lighthouse, is driven by characters who would check the box next to All of the Above—and what ensues is a delightfully chaotic exploration of masculine bonding, insanity and occult phenomena.
Before that chaos begins, the premise is almost too simple. Jagged, old mariner and wickie (slang for “lighthouse keeper”) Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) and fresh-faced ex-logger Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) are tasked with maintaining a lighthouse on a remote island for four weeks. There are dinners the two share, which involve debates about whether or not alcohol is allowed and intentional provocation on the part of Wake. There is an erotic, wooden carving of a mermaid that Winslow finds in his mattress and tucks away in his shirt. There are lots of pesky seagulls. Everyone goes insane.
The power of the movie comes primarily in its ability to drive the viewer to insanity as well as it does its characters. As Winslow begins to question his purpose, his past and even his name, the viewer begins to question the same; as Wake croons out a lie in moments of false vulnerability, the viewer begins to believe he’s telling the truth. It’s unsettling to be aware of that deception, but the feeling it inspires is great fun to sit with for a couple of hours.
To make a brief return to the seagulls—for all that they contribute to the gory, bone-chilling-ness of the movie, they also offer one of the sweetest moments of relief.
In the tension of knowing everything will soon fall apart in the minds of the men and waiting for that to happen (i.e. between the seagull-bashing and the kerosene consuming), Winslow stands shoveling coal as he always does. A flock of seagulls flutter far in the background. And it’s obvious they’re not real seagulls. Their two-dimensional movements are jerky, the sizes and shapes too consistent. It creates brief clarity in the mind of the viewer: OH! Those birds are fake! This is just a movie! It’s fine!
Small details carry the burden of hope, briefly convincing the viewer that things might turn around for the better for these two men. But things don’t turn around for the better (honestly—they start drinking kerosene).
Fundamentally, The Lighthouse is asking the same question a book like The Lord of the Flies does: what would happen if a small group of boys were stranded on an island far away from society?
No, scratch that.
The Lighthouse is asking the same question a book like The Lord of the Flies might be asking if it had just consumed alarming amounts of kerosene: what would happen if two men were stranded on an island far away from society—and they were already intensely lonely, and they had experienced great tragedy, and they each believed in intricate, dangerous superstitions and they both knew how to use weapons?
The answer is, of course—nothing good.