Contenders: The Lighthouse

Lighthouse keeping was a heck of a profession. So-called “wickies” shared all of sailors’ common superstitions, but faced unique challenges of isolation, inclement weather, and potential madness. Recently, filmmakers have discovered how well suited these lonely outposts are to serve as the settings for horror movies and psychological thrillers. Rising genre star Robert Eggers and his co-screenwriter brother Max looked to Edgar Allan Poe’s unfinished short story and the historical “Smalls Lighthouse” incident as inspiration for The Lighthouse, which screens during MoMA’s annual Contenders series.

Ephraim Winslow assumes he will be sharing most of the lightkeeping duties with the senior keeper, Thomas Wake, but instead the crusty old timer assigns him all the menial tasks, while hoarding the hands-on light-tending for himself. He seems perversely attached to the light, even stripping himself naked in its presence.

In addition to Wake’s blowhard bullying, Winslow must also fend off a rather mean-spirited one-eyed seagull. Of course, Wake sternly warns him against harming the nasty bird, because he shares the old folk belief that seafowl carry the spirits of dead sailors. The junior lightkeeper is further unnerved by visions of a seductively sinister mermaid and a tentacle beast worthy of Lovecraftian fiction. The only thing keeping him sane is the expectation the ferry will arrive soon to take him back to the mainland—but it doesn’t.

The Eggers Brothers’ narrative is very much like that of Chris Crow’s The Lighthouse, but the two films are worlds apart stylistically. Crow’s film is a tight, tense two-hander, but it looks like the classy BBC Films production that it was. In contrast, Eggers’ Lighthouse is shot in a claustrophobically tight aspect ratio and lensed in a strikingly stark black-and-white by cinematographer Jarin Blaschke.

The resulting film is like watching a fever dream recorded on a vintage kinetoscope. In terms of tone, some of the best comparative titles might be the trippier, occult-themes films of Georges Méliès. It looks incredible, but the Eggerses really couldn’t figure out how to end it, so they just sort of stop without fully developing a number of their themes.

Sundance ’18: Damsel

Ever since John Ford’s genre-defining The Searchers was released, nearly every subsequent western has had to deal with its legacy. That is even true of spoofs like this one. In the case of this goofball oater, the only Native character is just as big of an idiot as the pasty white characters. Nevertheless, echoes of The Searchers can be heard and seen throughout the Zellner Brothers’ Damsel, which screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Samuel Alabaster is a bit squirrely, but he seems like an earnest young chap, so sad sack Parson Henry agrees to make the trek to marry him and his beloved Penelope. However, while en route, Alabaster (he’s a white guy, in case you were unsure) informs the nebbish man of the cloth, he has actually joined a rescue mission. Dear Penelope has been kidnapped by the dastardly Anton. Yet, poor Henry agrees to soldier on, because he is moved by Alabaster’s ardor. However, things really get complicated when they arrive at the cabin.

Basically, the Zellners give an ironic O. Henry twist to the Old West premise and then devise ways to repeat the gag, over and over. Mia Wasikowska (well-represented at Sundance) is a formidable western heroine, but to get into specifics would be spoilery. Robert Pattinson is so unselfconsciously loopy as Alabaster, you have to give him credit for taking chances with his image. However, the Zellners’ MVP might just be Brother David, who is surprisingly humane and even rather affecting as Parson Henry.

As movie mash-ups go, Damsel is unusually moody. In fact, it rather dilly-dallies through the first act. Yet, that means the poignant pay-off does not so radically clash with the rest of the film. In many ways, we can see a kinship with the Zellners’ masterful Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (which also features a terrific supporting turn from David Zellner). It also directly addresses loneliness and the need for connection, but the outrageous gags give Damsel a partially split personality.

The Zellners clearly use the film’s Utah locations to evoke memories of The Searchers and other Ford westerns. They crank up the Utahness further by featuring Landon Weeks, a quite remarkable pianist from Ogden, as a saloon piano player, which is cool. It is an inconsistent film, but it proves movie spoofs need not be a brainless and soulless stretch of gags. Frankly, Kumiko was so great, it was wise of them to follow-up with something completely different. Recommended for viewers in the mood for some idiosyncratic humor that takes a few risks, Damsel is sure to get picked up by someone after it screened at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

NYFF ’16: The Lost City of Z

Col. Percival Fawcett was like Harry Faversham in The Four Feathers, except it was his breeding that was suspect rather than his courage. There was nothing Fawcett could do to change his lineage, so he definitely believes he has something to prove. As Fawcett sees it, the Amazonian rain forest is the place to do it. He will return several times to continue his obsessive search for a mythical fallen civilization in James Gray’s adaptation of the bestselling nonfiction narrative The Lost City of Z, which screened as the closing night selection of the 54th New YorkFilm Festival.

If you had to share a foxhole with an officer, Fawcett would a good choice. He would certainly seem to be part of the privileged class in today’s world, but not enough so for his contemporaries. Consequently, he has no medals to show for his lifetime of military service. Fawcett keenly feels such slights, so he embraces the opportunity offered by an attachment to a Royal Geographical Society’s mapping expedition in Bolivia. Although things turn dire rather quickly, Fawcett and his comrades Henry Costin and Arthur Manley will successfully complete their objective. Along the way, Fawcett picks up the scent of an ancient fallen city buried within the jungle. It might just be the fabled El Dorado, but Fawcett prefers to call it Z (or rather the British “Zed”).

Fawcett will return with subsequent expeditions hoping to find Z and the glory that would come with it. Unfortunately, the money for his second campaign comes with participation of his benefactor, alleged explorer James Murray, whose girth and sloth weighs down the party like an anchor. Meanwhile, Nina Fawcett waits patiently at home with their increasingly resentful eldest son Jack.

Naturally, Gray goes to ridiculous lengths to suggest Fawcett was more culturally sensitive and humane than your average colonial glory-hunter. Frankly, it feels like a case of protesting too much, but at least it doesn’t waterlog the on-screen adventure.

The sweeping visual scale and lush, shot-on-location backdrops represent a welcome throwback to epic filmmaking in the tradition of David Lean and Alexander Korda. Cinematographer Darius Khondji (who also lensed The City of Lost Children) fully capitalizes on the verdant vistas, probably setting himself up for a second Oscar nomination. Yet, Gray and company show more interest in the Fawcetts’ private family life than Henry Hathaway allowed for the Bengal Lancer.

Charlie Hunnam is clearly comfortable returning to his Northern English roots as Fawcett. Despite his limited range, he nicely conveys the human foibles driving Fawcett’s manic compulsion. Likewise, Sienna Miller teases out a fully dimensional portrait of his loyal (but maybe not quietly so) wife Nina. Robert Pattinson (the Y-chromosome Jennifer Anniston) completely disappears into the role of flinty Henry Costin to an admirable and almost shocking extent. Yet it is Angus Macfadyen (Robert the Bruce in Braveheart) who really supplies the X-Factor as Murray, Fawcett’s appropriately flamboyant antagonist.

It is strange to imagine a reasonably proper British officer slogging through the South American rain forest, but Gray adeptly positions him as an inspirational tragic figure rather than the cautionary sort. He also recreates the horrors of WWI just as well as anything you will see in Testament of Youth. It is a good, solid historical tale of derring-do, but the fact that such films are now the preserve of private equity productions and film festival premieres rather than the Hollywood studio system (such as it is) happens to be rather depressing. Recommended as a sweaty, slightly Conradian cinematic outing, The Lost City of Z is due to open in April 2017, after screening as the closing film of the 2016 NYFF.