Robert Eggers

  • The Lighthouse (2019)

    The Lighthouse (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, December 2020) I’m not necessarily unsympathetic to unusual cinema, but The Lighthouse clearly tested my patience through interminable lengths, sparse plotting, show-off atmosphere, uncertain genre affiliation and a downer ending. Granted, writer-director Robert Eggers has trained viewers to expect strange things from him with The Witch, and The Lighthouse is clearly in a similar genre: minimal cast, closed-off location, astonishing attention to period detail, and no happy ending in sight. Willem Defoe and Robert Pattinson star as two 1890s lighthouse keepers, isolated on an island off the coast of New England, whose rough-hewn camaraderie is tested by cabin fever, ominous portents, hallucinations and supernatural appearances. Or something like that: I use “supernatural appearances” as if this was a done deal when, in fact, this could all be a psychological drama. Naaah — movies are more fun when it’s supernatural, so supernatural is what we’ll call it. And trust me – you’ll need every bit of spare fun in order to make it through this intentionally interminable ordeal. Eggers seems intent on giving you the whole weeks-long experience, just so that you’ll sympathize with the character going stir-crazy. To be fair, Defoe and Pattinson are quite good in their roles (in fact, Defoe is absolutely terrific), their dialect is suitably thick, and the period atmosphere (even in a monochromatically shot hermetic universe like the lighthouse and its island) is so thick it’s almost oppressive. (The boxy aspect ratio certainly helps in creating confinement.) But in the end, and this despite a hefty dose of dark comedy, The Lighthouse leaves no bigger question than “So what?” Eggers clearly shot the film he wanted to, with scarcely any compromise to commercial appeal. I suppose that is something to be treasured in today’s cinematic hyper-financial obsession. But being weird and being worthwhile are not strictly aligned values. After seeing the extraordinary efforts made to make The Lighthouse off-beat and rebarbative, I’m just tempted to shrug and ask again – so what?

  • The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)

    The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, October 2016) I’m not an unconditional fan of horror movies, so I like to keep an eye out for the well-reviewed ones. Over the past years, that has netted me good recommendations for The Conjuring, It Follows and The Babadook. Alas, the hype isn’t always a guarantee of enjoyment, and that’s how we end up talking about The Witch and how it falls short of my expectations. I’m not necessarily opposed to what writer/director Robert Eggers is trying to do as a slow-paced but realistic portrayal of horror in early-colonial America. Make sure to turn up those subtitles, because The Witch embraces 1630s speech patterns to a degree that even native English speakers may find difficult to parse. That’s not necessarily a problem (“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” makes for a heck of a defining quote.). What is more of a problem is the tepid pacing, which has the dual effect of making viewers anxious for the next plot development and then making that development seem inevitable. For all the good I can think about the film’s deliberate control over its material, the quality of the cinematography, the sheer audaciousness of proposing a historically accurate witch story in today’s horror marketplace, or its not-so-subtle feminist themes, The Witch is far from being as interesting as I had hoped. By the time the ending rolls by, having concentrated most of its shock in the last few minutes, we’re left satiated but not satisfied. I’m glad to have seen it, but I’m not going to rave about it as I did with some other recent horror movies.