The Lighthouse

The way that this film couples Tom Howard’s descent into insanity with the gradual revelation that Thomas Wake has some of supernatural pull over the sea is done so well. It wasn’t until after this film that I actually learned about Proteus, and looking back, Dafoe played the gatekeeping, wise old man of the sea extremely well. Don’t leave me! This was one of the most important lines in the film for me — it carries the theme of loneliness so simply and yet so well, and the viewer sees throughout the film the lengths that Wake went to in order to keep Howard around. He latches onto Howard’s most primal desires — to feel at peace (drinking with him into a stupor) and to release his sexual frustration (giving him the carved mermaid and thus attaching him to the physical mermaid). That line is the one moment of genuine emotional weakness we see from the lighthouse keeper, showing just how lonely he is with only the mystical light as his company. Very solid film, and the almost instinctual fear of the sea (or nature as a whole and its unpredictability) works as a fantastic lens through which to watch it.