The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse, which was probably discussed more often at the Cannes Festival than the winner of the Palme d’Or. It is a masterpiece dripping with saltwater that dictates its own conditions right from the opening scenes; it is a claustrophobic gothic tale shot in black-and-white and one of the best films of the year. In the 1890s, two men (Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe in the best acting duel of the season) are locked up for weeks in a lighthouse as they try to come to an agreement, without removing the pipes from their mouths for even a moment and slowly losing their senses on a small, mysterious island in Maine, and in a way that only Robert Eggers—a lover of classic horror films—could come up with. The film is both terrifying and hysterically funny, not to mention full of juicy, infinitely long and highly quotable lines, none of which can be printed. It shows what might have happened if Herman Melville and the Lake Poets had drunk themselves into oblivion one evening and, listening to the howling of a storm outside, entertained themselves by telling tales of the sea in the intervals between scuffles.