Lo and behold, I saw the masterpiece last night and it was absolutely worth going trough the biggest storm this country experienced in a long time - I arrived in a cinema soaked to the skin with my umbrella demolished in the rain - intrigued with excellent reviews (but careful not to read anything about the plot) I waited and waited for months until this movie finally arrived in local cinemas and in fact, last evening was the first screening ever, the regular showing starting towards the end of the month. Must admit that this reviews following is not always successful, in fact its quite hit & miss - I hated "Parasite" passionately and was left cold with "Little Women" for example - but with this, I just had a hunch that it might be something for me. Boy, was I right.
In retrospective, it makes perfect sense that it was created and directed by the same person who did "The Witch" - that was an atmospheric, creepy and unusual movie set in 17th century New England and even characters spoke in some weird, old fashioned Puritan phrases that made the whole movie quite unforgettable experience - some audiences were left confused because it was advertised as a horror and it was actually nothing like cliché we were accustomed to expect, however it had stayed with me much longer than anything else so I guess "the nightmare quality" is what Robert Eggers will be known for. I am getting a bit worried about all this young, talented people who are really creating interesting things, directing great movies and writing brilliant books and they are all younger than me but hey, that's life I guess, we all have choices and our own destinies. This Eggers person is actually genuinely a great movie director and its clear now he is destined for Olympic heights. I rank him on the same shelf with Bergman, Kurosawa and any of those guys.
"The Lighthouse" is immensely bleak, black & white drama filmed in a such way to remind the audience of old, 19th century photographs so its all heavy grey and dark shadows. It reminded me quite a bit of "Earserhead" for some reason (nightmare quality, I guess) and it has only two characters who are stuck together in a Lighthouse at the end of the world where they slowly but surely descend into madness. Willem Dafoe is nasty Lighthouse keeper, limping and swearing, constantly farting and prone to bizarre monologues spoken in a almost incomprehensibly slurred, old-fashioned dialect ("Damn ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead!") while Robert Pattinson is young adventurer who came here to work as apprentice for only four weeks, but slowly reduced to a role of servant and slaving away trough the wind and the rain. Everything is very claustrophobic - two men share cramped little house where everything appears neglected and dingy, there is no warmth or comfort here, just desolation and wast emptiness outside, winds and the sea howling, foghorn blazing and occasional Hitchcockian seagulls that, like everything else, came straight from the nightmares. Forced to live together in a close proximity, two men cunningly fight for the authority - Dafoe insist that only he can control the light and young man has to serve, not only polishing the machinery and collecting the firewood but cleaning and emptying the chamberpots.
Pattinson initially refuses to drink but slowly accepts and thanks to alcohol, loneliness and genuine creepiness of the place itself (that drove previous helper to madness) both men eventually descent into completely raving lunacy, while brutal storms outside get stronger and stronger, matching their violence with bursts of natural destruction. Once they run out of alcohol and start drinking kerosene, we understand this won't finish good. Suffice to say, I watched almost the whole movie with my hands covering my mouth in shock and horror, completely aware that this is too brutal for words but I watched nevertheless - both actors are sensational and very brave, not afraid of physical tasks or to be ugly - in fact they both embrace the powerful roles completely and at times they play as one person. One watches this as a proverbial train crash - we know its horrible but we are still watching anyway - I left the cinema in daze and my head is still spinning the day after, what a sensational piece of cinematic art! True masterpiece - everything is perfect - naturally no for everyone and I just read how odious "Parasite" won four Academy Awards, oh well, to each his own, I think this movie was ten times better.
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