THE LIGHTHOUSE

Shot in black and white and in an aspect ratio of 1.19:1, giving us an almost square screen like the early silent movies and with really only a cast of two, Robert Eggers' "The Lighthouse" might appear to be either highly innovative or hugely pretentious or maybe even both. The setting is a lighthouse on a small, craggy island off New England, circa the 1890's. The only characters are the two lighthouse keepers, one young, (Robert Pattinson), and the other something of an old sea-dog, (Willem Dafoe), who seem to take an instant dislike to each other. The only way they have to pass the time is to work and to let their imaginations run away with them.

Eggers' movie has been described as a horror film but like his earlier "The Witch", it's far from a conventional horror film. Its demons are those of the mind rather than the spectres of the supernatural and its physical horrors are much more disturbing than its metaphysical imaginings and in the end it's up to its two players to sustain it. Pattinson has probably never been better and Defoe is simply magnificent. His is the most difficult role; his crusty old dictator could so easily have been nothing more than a cliché but Defoe gives his character shadings not immediately apparent in the script, as indeed does Pattinson.

Unfortunately, despite a highly unsettling score by Mark Korven and Jarin Blaschke's stunning cinematography boredom does set in before the climax, which I suppose was only to be expected. Eggers simply can't provide enough incidents of terror or indeed anything else to make us fully care about its protagonists. That said, there is enough here to ensure at least cult status and a considerable future for its director.