Hypnotic, hallucinatory and claustrophobic, heavily wrapped with mystery while wearing its influences on its sleeve, “The Lighthouse” allows us all to take a walk on the wild side and doesn’t let us come back to the other side in one piece, for this black and white retro style film, unlike Gemini Man, is an experimental success in how it laces a riveting narrative with flowing, concrete layers of symbolism and themes packed and stuffed around a haunting score, invigorating levels of suspense and tension, stellar cinematography, terrifying portraits of imagery, two powerhouse performances and an uproariously wacky yet tantalizing story that illustrates itself as both a self-portrait of loneliness, dread and madness and a masterpiece of Gothic horror. It's a bleak, esoteric and mind-bending trip to the edges of insanity, wrapped in a sobering study of the effects of isolation and so much more.
A24 strikes yet ANOTHER gold mine with yet another arresting, unsettling and sometimes even hysterical psychological thriller/horror film that delves deep into the mind of the human psyche, successfully displaying the boundaries between exactly how crazy a sane person can get and the certain reality that you never really know why people do things, like what will push a button in someone. Films like this, that question somebody’s sanity and test the morality of the viewer have quickly become one of my favorites because it all comes down to the fact that it’s going to spark many conversations and debates for weeks and months to come. It’s not an easy movie to go through and it’s just as difficult to depict what’s happening if you don’t know what you’re watching.
But that’s the beauty behind seeing such refreshing art like this: with this well-crafted, unique, very intelligent direction that harkens back to the work of Stanley Kubrick, seeing the light from this angle had never looked so bleak.
