Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on basement television.
I use the phrase “fever dream” a lot, I’ve realized, but sometimes there is simply no better way to describe what it is that I’m seeing. The Lighthouse is probably most easily described as that, a sort of slow but onrushing descent into insanity. Everything about the film is designed to enhance that feeling. The story, ultimately, feels like H.P. Lovecraft attempting to tell his own version of a Poe story like “The Tell-Tale Heart.” I have no other way to explain this movie, and there’s a part of me that doesn’t really want to try. This is a film that touches something deep and primal and not easily put into words.
At the same time, I’m reminded of a Ray Bradbury story called “The Fog Horn” about two men in a lighthouse. One night, the fog horn attracts a primal creature from the depths of the ocean that has seemingly fallen in love with the noise that the lighthouse makes. Frustrated, the creature eventually knocks the lighthouse down, and then is despondent over the death of the thing that it loves. There’s a deep sadness in that little story, a weird longing and a primal ache, and a little bit of the madness that drives a film like The Lighthouse.
