By Joseph Romano
Spoilers Ahead.
Robert Eggers is a filmmaker with a profound sense of location, period, and the power of the mind. In essence, he painstakingly builds the setting of his films – transporting the viewer into the context of the film as well as into the perspective of the main character. The Witch’s Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a very subdued character that is inevitably pushed to her limits by the restrictive nature of her family’s extreme Calvinist brand of religion, as well as the inexplicable horrors that befall her loved ones. She is a loving person that is slowly unraveled by the maddening events, inevitably forcing her away from God and towards evil.
This subtle, unnerving perspective on the discomposure of the mind – in its ability to attack everything one holds dear given the right circumstances – represents the opposite end of the spectrum to that which is occupied by Eggers’ second feature film The Lighthouse. The entire film unravels on a jagged, rock-strewn slab of land off of the coast of Maine.
On this piece of land – isolated from all humanity – is a tall stone lighthouse with a shanty quarter for the keepers of the light, or wickies, as Willem Dafoe’s Thomas Wick puts it. This location is one of horror due to its separation, its confines, its bleak weather, and its overall repression.
This repression is embodied by Ephraim Winslow, well actually Thomas Howard (Robert Pattinson), who is repressed in every which way, as can be seen by the subtle undertones the film so heavily relies upon. Howard has issues with authority, as he could not manage to take orders from authoritarian bosses.
His former Foreman Winslow, in many ways, is the same person as Thomas Wick. Tom Howard is verbally berated, called a dog, made to do the demeaning work, and at the end accused of being lax with his duties. He is a man on the run, as he cannot cope with the attitude of authority.
Perhaps, this issue dates back to the domineering presence of his father, who lingers over Howard daily. This element is surely subtle and may not be anything of substance, yet he clearly states that he is God-fearing and decries that Wick is not his father, implying that he does not have authority over him.
Howard is at a juncture in his life where his father should not maintain such a domineering presence – thus it implies unresolved past issues. Perhaps his father even instilled these religious apprehensions into him, which exhibit themselves in his illicit impulses that are often coupled with bouts of self-loathing.
This character is clearly haunted by his past and that overwhelming guilt manifests itself in a variety of ways – a fanatical obsession with a spine-chilling mermaid; an antagonistic relationship with a pestering, one-eyed seagull; swift, encroaching tentacles; and the personification of the frightening evocation of Greek mythology after Wick’s memorable diatribe against him. This film presents a nightmarish narrative in which the viewer can hardly detect the disparity between reality and fiction – therein lies the prodigious power of the human mind and thus the innate horror it entails.
Beyond the utterly manic style of the narrative and insidious nautical imagery, the style above all else is the spectacle that propels this film forward. Eggers not only employs a plethora of pre-1940 camera lenses, but he also utilizes an aspect ratio that is thoroughly condensed that it captures the exact essence of what he believes the experience of tending a lighthouse must have been, based on his thorough research. This claustrophobic presentation allows the audience to have a glimpse into Howard’s brittle mind – a jumble of death, guilt, retribution, and salvation.
The structure and status within the lighthouse represents Howard’s unattainable venture for salvation. The light contains the means for his deliverance, yet he is mired and this leaves him fixated with no other option than to have his guilt fester. Only in the closing minutes of the film, when his goals are ultimately attained, he resigns himself to his ultimate fate. Howard’s salvation was accepting his frightful actions as just that – he could not outrun his own guilt.
The Daily Review 