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Tuesday, February 18, 2020

The Lighthouse (2019)

This was nominated for an Oscar for cinematography and it is a good candidate for that, using lighting and camera angles to tell a visual story that is well punctuated by a sound track that augments the effect.  Waves crash, birds scream, and rain pounds relentlessly throughout. The effect is to drive you a little mad, so you can see how the two men on a bleak island isolated from anyone would be vulnerable to that. It’s not just a film these two people on the edge of sanity, it uses sound design and filmmaking tools to push you the viewer there too. It has the feel of watching someone else’s nightmare from within, and you can tell from the very first scene, when Willem Defoe's character mercilessly berates the new lighthouse keeper that it’s not one that’s going to end well.
So when a storm comes up, there is no relief in sight, food runs low, and alcohol is flowing too plentifully that the worst is yet to come.  It is an atmospheric movie, one that sucks you up onto the screen and then lets you watch the devolving of the situation up close.  Not for the feint of heart, or the young.

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