The lighthouse (2019)

Movie
German title	The lighthouse
Original title	The lighthouse
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	2019
length	109 minutes
Age rating	FSK 16 ; JMK 16
Rod
Director	Robert Eggers
script	Max Eggers , ; Robert Eggers
production	Youree Henley , ; Lourenço Sant 'Anna , ; Rodrigo Teixeira , ; Jay Van Hoy
music	Mark Korven
camera	Jarin Blaschke
cut	Louise Ford
occupation
	Willem Dafoe : Thomas Wake; Robert Pattinson : Ephraim Winslow; Valeriia Karaman: Mermaid ;

Der Leuchtturm (original title The Lighthouse ) is a horror film by Robert Eggers , which premiered on May 19, 2019 as part of the Cannes International Film Festival in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs series and was released in German cinemas on November 28, 2019. The film is set in the world of old seafaring myths and is about two beacon keepers in Maine at the end of the 19th century, who are increasingly mad .

action

Tom Wake, a former seaman with a puzzling leg injury, and his new assistant Ephraim Winslow, who has left his job as a lumberjack in Canada, work a four-week shift as a lighthouse keeper on a small rocky island at the tip of Nova Scotia in the late 19th century on. Wake declares himself responsible for the lights and the cooking, and insists that only he spend the nights at the top of the tower, even though the rules state that both should take turns on shifts. He assigns Winslow, whom he initially only calls “boy”, to the lower jobs: he has to haul coal for the steam engine during the day and keep it running at night as a stoker , empty the chamber pots, catch lobsters, wash, mend and clean. During his activities outdoors as well as in front of the window of the shared bedroom, he several times encountered a one-eyed seagull, which he can only scare away with difficulty and which he finally kills.

Ephraim is annoyed that he is not allowed on the tower, and is also suspicious and terrified that Wake's former assistant died after he went mad. Wake's monotonous lobster diet is boring, his harassment becomes unbearable. It doesn't take long for the reticent Ephraim to develop a deep grudge against his tyrant.

As their four weeks passed, a sudden storm made it impossible to leave the island. It appears Ephraim will have weeks to spend with Wake on the deserted island while supplies inevitably run out.

When they have to spend their time together, Wake acts extremely vulgar and the tension between the men increases. When they drink together, however, there is a certain intimacy between the two. Winslow begins to lose himself more and more in visions. One night, Winslow says, drunk , that his real name is Thomas Howard and that he has assumed the identity of Ephraim Winslow, a lumberjack who died in an accident that he could not prevent.

Howard tries to leave the island in a rowboat, but is surprised by Wake, who destroys the boat with an ax. He is chased into the hut by Wake, where he claims that Howard destroyed the boat himself.

After a heavy breaker had devastated the house of the two in the night , Howard found the floating lighthouse logbook of Wake the next morning, in which he consistently rated him negatively and recommends firing him without pay.

He then confronts Wake. A fight ensues in which Howard wins the upper hand. He leads Wake like a dog on a leash to the lighthouse and tries to bury him alive in the hole in the former liquor stores. Howard takes the key to the lantern chamber and makes his way upstairs, but is injured by Wake with a heel on the shoulder. Howard fights back and kills Wake.

The Fresnel lens opens up for him in the lantern chamber . Howard falls into ecstasy in the glaring light, reaches in, fascinated, and begins to scream until he falls down the entire stairs of the lighthouse. In the end you see him lying naked on the coast, where several seagulls peck out his intestines.

production

Staff, cast and dubbing

The director was Robert Eggers , who also wrote the script together with his brother Max Eggers , although the filmmaker had previously developed the material with RT Features producers Rodrigo Teixeira and Lourenço Sant 'Anna . In a statement, Studio A24 , which is responsible for sales , was enthusiastic about the script, which is set in a world of old seafaring myths and set at the beginning of the 20th century: “It creates a completely unique and ambitious universe and manages to create itself to feel somehow scary, exciting, wondrous and beautiful at the same time. "

The brothers drew inspiration from magazines from the period and from passages from Herman Melville's stories and the work of Maine, New England novelist and poet Sarah Orne Jewett .

Willem Dafoe took on the role of lighthouse keeper Thomas Wake. In February 2018, the cast of the role of Ephraim Winslow with Robert Pattinson was announced. The mermaid, a siren from Ephraim's visions, is played by Valeriia Karaman.

The German dubbing was based on a dialogue book and the dialogue direction by Christoph Cierpka on behalf of Interopa Film GmbH, Berlin. Johannes Raspe lends his voice to Ephraim Winslow in the German version, Reiner Schöne speaks Thomas Wake.

Filming and equipment

The film team built their own lighthouse on the Cape Forchu peninsula on the southern tip of Nova Scotia

The shooting took place in spring 2018 in the coastal city of Yarmouth , in Halifax , the capital of the Canadian province Nova Scotia, and on the Cape Forchu peninsula at the southern tip of the country. On the island formed by volcanic rock, on which there are no trees, the film team had erected a 20 meter high, functioning lighthouse. According to Eggers, no wind and rain machines were used during the shooting. Jarin Blaschke acted as cameraman , who had already realized Eggers' film The Witch . The film was shot in black and white, in an old-fashioned 1.19: 1 aspect ratio , which gave the images an almost square shape, as was usual at the beginning of the sound film. Christoph Petersen von Filmstarts remarks: "In the square 1: 1 format you felt the claustrophobic tightness of the situation before the two guards even arrived on the island." For him, these razor-sharp, equally beautiful and deeply disturbing shots belong to the thunderous lake and the barren rocky ridge, next to Roma one of the strongest black and white pictures that one has seen in a long time.

Film music and publication

The film music was composed by Mark Korven , with whom Eggers had also already worked for The Witch . The soundtrack, which comprises a total of 13 pieces of music, was released on CD by Milan Records on October 18, 2019 and is due to be released on vinyl at a later date.

The film was presented from 19 May 2019 as part of the Cannes International Film Festival in the side series Quinzaine des Réalisateurs , which Thomas Schultze in focus: Film a “shame” in view of the competitive chances of the film and on the other hand a “coup” for Paolo Moretti, new head of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, called. In September 2019 the film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Special Presentations and presented in the main competition at the Leipzig Film Art Fair and at the American Film Festival in Deauville that same month . At the end of September and beginning of October 2019 it was shown at the Hamburg Film Festival and the Zurich Film Festival , and at the beginning of October 2019 also at the London Film Festival . The film was released in selected US cinemas on October 18, 2019. A theatrical release in Germany took place on November 28, 2019.

reception

Age rating

In Germany, the film was approved by the FSK from the age of 16. The statement of reasons for the release states that the dialogues are sometimes vulgar, and in the end there are several scenes of violence . Due to the fact that some scenes seemed grotesquely humorous, however, an emotional distancing is facilitated. The black and white aesthetic of the film, reminiscent of silent films, also makes it easy for young people aged 16 and over to distance themselves from the story.

Reviews and grossing results

Willem Dafoe at the premiere for the film in Cannes in May 2019

The film was able to convince 90 percent of the 371 critics at Rotten Tomatoes and received an average rating of 8 out of a possible 10 points, making it runner-up in the 21st Annual Golden Tomato Awards in the Best Horror Movie 2019 category . He also took one of the top places in the films presented in Cannes. In the critics' mirror of critic.de he received mostly positive reviews.

Eric Kohn of IndieWire writes that Robert Eggers conjured up the ghosts of Herman Melville and Andrei Tarkowski in his film , with plenty of borrowing from Stanley Kubrick and Béla Tarr . Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe's acting is breathtaking when they unleash their wildest extremes. The Lighthouse is said to be the best movie about bad roommates ever made and is so aligned with its many cinematic traditions that it feels like a movie that could have been made decades ago. The visual language and rhythm of the story conveyed everything from The Seventh Seal to Solaris to Shining , the closest comparison being Tarr's apocalyptic The Turin Horse , another modern black and white minimalist saga in which two people are trapped while the world is in collapses around them.

The film critic Antje Wessels writes, in addition to the spectacular performance of Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, who in a frightening mixture of lovecraft visions and the nightmare of loneliness gradually drive each other crazy in the truest sense of the word, is probably one of the greatest advantages von Der Leuchtturm the virtuoso camera work by Eggers' regular cameraman Jarin Blaschke . The soundscape of sea noises and the lighthouse signal, which is piercing its marrow and bone, also makes a decisive contribution to the cinema experience.

From the German Film and Media Review was the lighthouse with the predicate particularly valuable provided. In the justification, the film is described as an outstanding variation of the horror film with the means of silent film aesthetics and an avant-garde sound design. In the tradition of Ingmar Bergman's dark 1960s films, Der Leuchtturm combines harsh realism with visionary moments that conjured up the Gothic horror of the 1930s and German expressionism . The disturbing imagination is drawn from the cosmic mythology of HP Lovecraft . It is also likely to be a coincidence that the film is set in Maine, that State, the Stephen King horror home . It remains to be seen until the end of the film when it will leave a physical level of reality behind and enter the world of subjective madness.