⭐⭐☆☆☆

Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse is a beautiful film. Gorgeously shot, well acted, with an eye to deft camera work and artful production that often seems lost in modern cinema. The dialogue and dreamy, eerie feel of the film carry it far. So, why two stars?

Man cannot live on pretty filmography alone, and this is an example of good movie that could have been great. The dialogue alone is fascinating, by turns funny and terrifying, always interesting and delivered with a cinematic flourish and artistry that make the rather grim movie nearly worth the slog.

However, as events progress and the true characters of our protagonists emerge, one is left viewing the last act of the movie with lukewarm feelings. What is the point of it all? Why even bother? What was gained by viewing this film, by enduring the hardships and insanity of the wickies in their loneliness and backbreaking work?

From here on, THERE BE SPOILERS.

It goes without saying, but this movie is obviously an adult film. There are several awkward masturbation scenes which could add to a story, except that there seems to be no real point other than to underline a sort of desperate, bankrupt emptiness. That is the end of this movie, and I am increasingly seeing this as the thesis of Eggers’s work: life is painful, pointless, and cruel.

A nihilistic viewpoint on life does not always a mediocre film make, but in this case it left me wanting for more, given the brilliance that was otherwise present. It felt like everyone showed up here to make something amazing and significant, and were ultimately let down by the dearth of deeper meaning. There are attempts, strainings for that meaning – so many winks and nods to classical Greek mythology, and to sailor’s lore in general which are always interesting. My favorite scene in the film is when Thomas Wake invokes a curse upon Winslow, his face menacingly lamplit and his delivery deathly serious, only for Winslow to brazenly blow him off, which seems to set the tone for the film. Where The Witch fully embraced supernatural weirdness and otherworldly shenanigans, The Lighthouse instead reminds me of a work that may have been borne from the age of Freud and Jung, when mankind was attempting clumsily to explain the human condition in the wake of the Enlightenment through obtuse, and one might say arcane, psychological examination.

What I am driving at here, is that while a movie like Woman in the Dunes, which in an abstract way reminded me of this film, arrives at the same nihilistic destination, the journey and the culmination of the story as a whole is much more satisfying in Woman in the Dunes than it is in The Lighthouse, which feels more like some of Ingmar Bergman’s work. I should note that I am not a fan of Bergman, his philosophy and mine are very much at odds and as such his films frankly bore me.

The final image you are left with in this film is actually perfect in light of what the filmmaker seemed to be going for. Winslow, echoing Prometheus in another rather heavy-handed allegory to Greek myth, attains the lamplight, the “fire” which he has been lusting after, only to be cast down to earth and left to be helplessly eaten alive by gulls. Prometheus, himself, was sentenced by Zeus to have his liver eaten out by an eagle every day, only for it to regrow and the cycle to begin anew with each dawn. Perpetual, useless, and meaningless suffering.

Modern man, bereft of spirituality or clear moral boundaries, often finds his fate to be equally objectionable, and this bears out in the almost universally positive reception of this film upon its release. People have hailed this movie as a modern classic, as a return to great art films in modern cinema. And if one is to measure it against the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of our current climate, I suppose one could say that this is an accurate assessment. Personally, I couldn’t recommend this film.