Lighthouse movie review- by kermode and mayo

Full text transcript of the Lighthouse moview review:

So I’ve seen the film a couple of times now, I’ve seen it on a small screen and I’ve seen it on a big screen with a big, loud sound system. And the first thing I should say is this is a film that you need to see in the cinema. Don’t wait for it to come on the streaming services or, you know, seek out the cinema to see it because it needs to be. It’s an experiential movie because those are the ratio, as you said, is small, is small, very small on your television. Actually, I was reading about the origin of it and Robert Egger saying that his brother Max had been attempting to work on an update of this unfinished fragment by Edgar Allan Poe called The Lighthouse, which is a really weird thing. And it’s only you can read it in like five minutes. It’s a fragmentary story that is a series of diary entries of somebody isolated in Lighthouse begins January the 1st, 1796, and it gets as far as January the fourth. And the manuscript ends and there is it’s unfinished. There is also a theory that actually maybe it is finished, maybe the finished is January the fourth and then nothing else. And the last line written on it is the basis on which this structure rests. Seems to me to be chalk. So it’s a story about somebody isolated in this environment, which they think should be safe, but they can hear stuff going on and they’re not quite sure why they can hear stuff going on, but they get the sense that the thing they’re in is built on unsafe land.

And so there is a whole kind of, you know, house falling down sense this kind of impending doom, this sense of isolation. And although that the story of the lighthouse as we have it now, which is Robert and Max, I guess, scripted it together, the Poe is long gone. But that sense of dread, because when I said to you, you know, in the in the distant past, you said, well, that actually, of course, absolutely makes sense. So it’s mutating into something else, but it does still have that atmosphere. When you said to Willem Dafoe, you know, it’s been perhaps mis sold as a horror film, which incidentally, I think was the same of the which people were told that the which was a big scary movie. And I think which is really disturbing, really disturbing. But I think some people went to see it expecting quite, quite bancshares, which is a kind of completely different thing. So Robert Pattinson is from Molson, who arrives at this lighthouse where Willem Dafoe, Thomas attends the lighthouse. And he’s a it’s a barren, rainy place where they promptly get isolated. And what happens very early on is that Robert Pattinson discovers this like a like a carved mannequin of a mermaid in his mattress. And he sees Thomas up by the lighthouse, taking off his clothes, somehow kind of staring at the light.

And we told, you know, you can’t you can’t go up there. I tend the light. You do all the menial jobs. We heard some of that in the in the clip that you played. And the thing starts to develop into a kind of a slightly sort of 10 Tukwila hypnotic because as I said, they run out of supplies, they start drinking as they start drinking. Everything about all the kind of paranoid underbelly of the story starts to get worse and worse. And there is a sort of a sense of their identities become confused. At one point when the first character says how long we’ve been here for weeks or two days, like they’ve lost all sense of time. Meanwhile, they are beset by seagulls who may or may not embody spirits of, you know, of ancient myths. There’s one thing, but it’s bad luck to kill a seagull, which kind of invokes, you know, Ancient Mariner and, you know, the albatross and all that sort of stuff. And as you quite rightly said, there is a sense that none of this is going to end well. There is a sense, you know, that from the beginning it’s not going to be a happy ending. So the first thing to say is that, I mean, I really, really liked it because cinematography is extraordinary and has been nominated for awards and quite rightly so shot in this. You know, it’s really, really tight in the which was one six six, which is a kind of older ratio, which is taller because in taller rather than is wider because so much of the which was taking place against the background of trees.

And this has really got that claustrophobic, enclosed feeling. And I do think the cinematography is quite astonishing. And of course, it is shot film. When I watch it the first time I said, you know, the interesting thing is this is like a companion piece to bait the Mark Jenkins film. Well, I just discovered today that they’re doing a double bill at the NFTE. I think it is on Monday, the BFI Southbank in London, in which they are going to show the lighthouse and bait. And I believe that Mark Jenkins, who made bait, is going to introduce the lighthouse because, weirdly enough, the films are totally similar. And when you look at what it is that Robert Agassis is kind of achieving with his with his, you know, visual sense, that is something very close to that driven sense of a specific vision that that Mark Jenkins has. There are also in the background, as I mentioned, the Poe thing. You know, you might see similarities to the story of I review the film last year called The Vanishing, which is also known as keepers. Not that varnishing. It was known as Keepers, which is a film which is based on the flat denials. Lighthouse disappearance of 1900 in which you guys went out to a lighthouse and all disappeared, and it’s one of those kind of great mysteries what happened to them.

And the general feeling is either some storm knocked all over that or they all went crazy because people in isolated, you know, enclosed experience, enclosed environments that will happen. There is also a kind of strange touch of I know this sounds like a crazy comparison, but things like sunshine, an event horizon, that sense of, you know, this being drawn towards a dark light being absolutely mesmerizing. Remember the thing in sunshine about as they get closer and closer to the sun, it develops a kind of almost like God, like the sun and all that is going on in the background. But the thing that really makes it work is it also reminded me at times, although, again, it’s very, very different story of a field in England which had that same sense. If you think of the tent walk seen from a field in England, and if you say to somebody, what exactly is happening in that scene, they’ll say, I don’t know. But I find it really, really disturbing. Can you say what was this a scene in in a field in England in which these kind of these travellers have basically fallen under the spell of Michael Smiley’s character? And Richelle Smith goes into a tent where something really demonic is happening, but you don’t know what. And then he comes out of the tent in slow motion, attached to a rope, and it’s just a shot of him walking out of the tent with a smile on his face, which is like the smile of the possessed.

And it’s a slow motion. All it is, is him walking out of a tent on the road is one of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen. And there are individual moments in the lighthouse in which you get that same sense. I don’t quite know why this is so disturbing. I don’t quite know why this is so oppressive. I think there are a number of reasons. Firstly, I think the performances are great. You do get the impression that those two characters have been, you know, stuck together in a very confined space for what seems like a very long time, although, as he says, how long have we been here? I don’t know. And they’ve lost sense of time. And I always find that a particularly creepy idea that I that you no longer know how long you’ve been somewhere. You know, you’ve been there weeks. Have you been the days? We’ve been there hours. Who knows. Plus, there’s the thing about the disintegration of identity, which is one of the things that the film is about, because there is this kind of weird thing going on about transference of who did what. And they start having conversations in which they appear to be talking as each other. And then there are these strange kind of moments in which as the drunkenness, as the madness, as the debauchery takes over, the film itself sort of slips into these almost dreamlike states.

So it’s one of the it’s one of those weird things in which it’s a film in which nothing happens a lot. And the nothing is really is really disturbing and really profoundly affecting. And if you said what’s it a story of which you virtually did, you said to Willem Dafoe, tell us the story. He said, well, it’s the story of two blokes trapped in a lighthouse. And it is. But it’s so much more than that. It is. It’s just you know, it’s a story about about transference, about paranoia, about brooding horror, about personal disintegration, this throbbing soundtrack. And, you know, the Mark Korban throbbing score, which again, actually reminded me of the of the analog synth work that’s going on in the background of bait and a great performance by Robert Pattinson, who hasn’t done a bad performance in living memory now, except for perhaps the French king in in whatever that was in the king. In the king. Yes, I yes. This was overly friendly. Yes. I shall taunt you a second time. And Willem Dafoe with a beard that was so convincing that it can only have been his act cannot be a prop, be it. Right. He must have just allowed himself to turn into the wild man of Borneo with that beard. It’s a it’s it is really something I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure I know what, but that’s what I like about it.

And in the same way as when I came out of I came out of the witch and I felt really profoundly shaken. And I saw the witch twice. And I same thing. I just recently went to see the lighthouse again, to see it projected to see it with her, you know, and it’s it’s really something. Yes, I here’s my question to you. I it’s not a question. Is a statement OK? I think it is possible to admire a movie and to enjoy the performances that you’re watching. Yeah. And think that the final piece of work is astonishing. And I couldn’t wait for it to finish, which I mean that as a compliment. Oh, I know you do. I know. Desperate to get off the island. Yeah. As they were. Yeah. But I was more desperate and I didn’t have diesel fuel to drink and I just asked I’m not going to say this. Yes, because. Because the light. Stream is off. What about what hasn’t pressed the right buttons? I know, but what about the moment? Yes, didn’t that just hasn’t that just really stayed in your mind? Apparently it’s back. Oh, fine. Well, then what about that moment and astonishing what an astonishing moment that was for people to just join us to see you acting out that. And what about the tableau vivant? What about that? Yes. Yes, that. But, you know, I mean, yes, yes. But I don’t want to think about no one to think about me reenacting it.