LIGHT FANTASTIC

An historically specific, reduced ratio, B&W tale of lampmen losing it, THE LIGHTHOUSE is a hard sell on paper – but has received ecstatic festival reactions throughout the year. Total Film caught up with stars Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe to talk farts, facial hair and seagull battering in a bonkers psychedelic horror you NEED to see.

- JANE CROWTHER

Meeting Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in the luxury surroundings of London’s Soho Hotel is something of a jarring experience having seen their work together in The Lighthouse. There, they play grizzled 19th Century old-timer ‘wickie’ Thomas Wake (Dafoe) and chippy newbie Ephraim Winslow (Pattinson), who descend into booze-fuelled madness in a filthy lighthouse when a storm strands them on an unforgiving island in Maine. Filmed in a stifling 1.19.1 aspect ratio and lensed in monochrome with a custom orthochromatic filter – and often in queasy close-up – the duo are laid bare on-screen. Every fleck of spittle glints during rageful monologues about lobster and beans; circles under sleep-ravaged eyes bloom darkly; the rain, the bodily fluids, the oil glistens slickly. Combined with an insistent sound design (foghorns, bird screams, farts), the experience is so visceral it feels like you can almost smell the damp wool, taste the kerosene, feel the bone-clattering chill. And two famous actors disappear to leave only pirate-sounding bearded bully Thomas and resentful, secret-keeping Ephraim.

Dafoe, clean-shaven, dressed in an expensive-looking jumper and jeans can understand the disconnect when we sit down. “Usually when you see a movie, you have such strong associations with the making of it. You’re watching this scene, and you’re like, ‘Oh, they used that shot’ or, ‘It was terribly cold that day.’ But this one, I felt like I didn’t recognise myself [on screen]. It’s like, ‘Who are those guys out there?’” Pattinson, in crisp navy bomber jacket and nursing a latte instead of lamp oil, agrees. “No one’s making movies like [director] Robert [Eggers] is making – which are so specific, so odd and interesting – and clever. They’re really clever movies.”