Robert Eggars’ The Lighthouse (2019) escapes easy genre-pigeonholing. It is Edgar Allan Poe-inspired, it also has strong elements of Gothic Romanticism, psychological thriller and touches of the surreal, but here the whole is truly greater—and stranger—than the proverbial sum of its parts. One thing doesn’t escape classification: it is beautifully shot in a sumptuous palette of grays on 35mm film and framed in an almost perfect square (actually 1.19:1 ratio). Forget about that pathetic trend of releasing black and white versions of movies (presumably to give them an art-house aesthetic they never remotely had to begin with), Eggars and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke have created a film that was born to be in black and white, dare I say, that would have suffered if shot in color.

I must mention that, besides the luxurious cinematography, another vital aspect of this film are the performances of both Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson that run the gamut from understated to over-the-top.

Replacement worker Winslow (Pattinson) arrives on a remote island outpost as assistant to lighthouse caretaker Wake (Dafoe). From there, the story begins to churn like the sea surrounding the island itself. Scores of seagulls seem to hang stationary in the lonely island air, nailed to the sky like a butterfly collection. The surrounding sea’s pounding, crashing waves underline the isolation and transmit the inescapable feeling of a primal force so belittling, so humbling, so invincible; resistence seems truly futile. The only light in this film is that of the lighthouse’s arc light, and even that has something of the sinister about it.

Between mermaids, seagulls and fever dreams, there are secrets under the surface of everything and everybody that, like corpses buried at sea, eventually bubble up and reveal themselves. Everything seems to get trapped, drowning, in the tar-black of Eggars’ film, unable to free itself, sinking deeper, further entrenched. Nothing is as presented except the indominable sea.

Snob Shorthand: this is cinema! Big screen it!