“The Lighthouse” (2019)

I’d intended to piggyback my last essay with reasons why American democracy is on the skids. But after Joe Biden’s narrow victory, I feel we’ve nudged just a bit closer to sanity, despite the yawning political, cultural, and racial divide that will continue to exist. We’ll see more attempts to subvert the democratic process while King of the Birthers, as everyone anticipated, gathers his Morlocks together to contest the results of perhaps the cleanest election in history. But to say anything more, right now, would be bad form.  

Instead, I’ll review a movie I recently watched. Movies can offer great escapism during these surreal times. They’re almost as effective as getting drunk, and there’s no hangover.

Those who know me know I prefer older things: older movies, music, novels, gas pump kiosks, et cetera. So it’s unusual for me to watch a recent film, like, one made in the last thirty years. The dear departed Sean Connery summed it up: those making Hollywood movies today are, quite frankly, “idiots.”

But while scrolling through Roku or one of those other bullshit TV toys, I saw the title, promo pic, and sea imagery for The Lighthouse and said “Cor blimey, greenpete, live dangerously!” I also admire Willem Dafoe’s acting. I saw him in Mississippi Burning, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July and, although these flicks have some flaws, I consider Dafoe a highlight. He’s a little weird, like Christopher Walken with human blood, so he’s always fun to watch.

With The Lighthouse, I looked forward to getting mentally entangled in a complex psychological drama. I didn’t expect to get stuck in simplistic psychological horror.

Here’s the “story”: two New Englanders from the 19^th century (I think) convene at an island lighthouse for a four-week shift duty. Dafoe plays a crusty, veteran sea salt. Robert Pattinson is a younger, green-around-the-gills landlubber. Despite some minor cultural squabbles at the start, they seem to be handling the eerie isolation and crappy weather. Then, Salty Dog’s behavior takes on a sadistic turn, and Greenhorn begins hallucinating.

You may be thinking The Shining transferred to the seacoast. I thought so, too. But The Shining benefited from the cinematic genius of Stanley Kubrick. This film is actually closer in spirit to the one-note Shutter Island, but without a gimmick ending. While the B&W cinematography deserved its Oscar nomination, that’s the only good thing here, other than Dafoe’s entertaining Ahab shtick. There’s no backstory…or story proper. The whole film is a celebration of depravity. Here are some lowlights:

• Greenhorn fucks a mermaid. (Or is he hallucinating?) And this is a 21^st-century-styled mermaid, so she’s actually just a topless, thick-lipped runway model with a tailfin costume
• Greenhorn violently masturbates to a toy figurine of his favorite mermaid
• Greenhorn angrily flails a seagull against a wall for five minutes until the bird looks like a bloody rag. (Seriously, someone needs to contact PETA.)
• Salty Dog farts loudly
• While drunk, Salty Dog and Greenhorn dance cheek-to-cheek and nearly have homosexual sex. This scene is almost as nauseating as the seagull scene
• Greenhorn makes Salty Dog bark and crawl on all fours with a rope leash around his neck
• Greenhorn splits Salty Dog’s head in two with an axe. SPOILER ALERT (oops, sorry, too late).

I’m beyond my self-imposed space limit, so I’ll close. If you want to see how a skilled filmmaker handles gradual descents into madness, watch Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965). Don’t bother with this bilge water, which is, like our Demagogue-in-Chief, truly repulsive. Sean Connery was right.

Well, I’m headed back to TCM. And to watch our petulant child-president do what he does so well.

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