TIFF Movie Overview: The Lighthouse Shines Shiny With Wild Performances By Dafoe and Pattinson
The Pitch: A pair of males — younger and athletic Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) alongside outdated and skilled Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) — bond, struggle, and go mad whereas managing a distant, remoted lighthouse over 4 weeks.
Interval Magnificence: Very like Robert Eggers’ 2014 breakout smash The Witch, The Lighthouse is a interval movie that’s exquisitely lovely. Filmed on 35 mm in beautiful black and white, Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke use the murky monochrome palette to evoke not solely a way of rustic timeliness but additionally a way of place. The tiny island the place the 2 males are marooned is very unforgiving, radiating with hostility by cylical photographs of watery swells, crackling surf, gnarly rocks, and torrential skies.
A Strained Relationship: The movie begins with an keen, almost mute Pattinson and Dafoe’s gruff authoritarian arriving to alleviate one other pair of males. Their dilapidated quarters are tight and the division of labour is hierarchical: Dafoe claims the higher echelon the place the sunshine shines, sequestering Pattinson to the bottom stage to sort out all the menial chores.
Every night time, the boys come collectively for a ritualistic dinner and compelled dialog — although, Dafoe goes in on the liquor — and this inflexible construction helps elucidate the facility dynamic of the boys. Dafoe resents Pattinson for his youth and vigor, mistrusting his skills and believing he’s little greater than a reasonably boy transient. Pattinson, in the meantime, rebukes Dafoe’s ageism, believing him to be a catankerous drunk and presumably a bit mad.
