Tag: Robert Pattinson

The Lighthouse

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

The 1890s. The constant pounding of 19th century industrial machinery. Stark black and white photography in a 4:3 Academy aspect ratio. On the prow of a steamship as it ploughs through the water stand two men. They head towards an island with a light… a lighthouse. They disembark from a rowing boat.

Inside the building, the older lighthouse keeper (Willem Dafoe) instructs his new assistant (Robert Pattinson), who he constantly addresses as “Lad”, in his duties. Despite what’s written in the manual, he won’t allow the assistant to operate the light itself – he’s charged with repair and maintenance work.

They get off to a bad start when the Lad refuses a drink from his new superior, opting for water rather than whisky. Some time later though, he relents to join him in a whisky and asks that they address each other by name. The assistant is Ephraim, the keeper is Tom. Ephraim becomes increasingly unreliable. He has a run in with a gull and lobs a rock at it, an act which upsets Tom who believes that dead sailors’ souls inhabit the birds. Ephraim is sitting in Tom’s hoist halfway up the lighthouse exterior on painting duty when it breaks, causing him to fall some twenty or so feet.

He also has unnerving, increasingly sexual dreams and masturbatory fantasies of a mermaid, brought on perhaps by a combination of the isolation of the place and the small carved mermaid figurine he finds in a slit in his mattress. He finds her lying in recesses under seaweed atop rocks. He imagines tentacles passing and strange, close up shots of orifices in undersea creatures.

The two men’s rough period costumes and lengthy conversations in equally period dialogue over meal times and drink, the cramped lighthouse room and stairwell interiors, the harsh exteriors of rocky outcrop, gulls, mermaids, the contrasty black and white photography, the constant, pounding and pulsing industrial sound, all these elements combine to render the film a unique sensory narrative, visual and aural experience for the viewer.

It helps too that the dramatic element is grounded in two striking lead performances, but the other elements are very much in play. As the film proceeds, it becomes increasingly dreamlike and harder and harder to distinguish fantasy from reality. It’s not always clear if events are unfolding in the real world or somewhere in Ephraim’s subconscious. Like the intermittent shots rising up the spiral staircase lighthouse interior, this us not do much as descent into madness as, disturbingly, an ascent to that state as if it were a higher physical plane.

Although not that long a film, it’s highly demanding, not something to see if you’re quite tired after a hard day’s work. This is not a film that carries the viewer: a certain amount of work is required of the audience. Approach it in that frame of mind, though, and it should prove rewarding.

The Lighthouse is out in the UK on Friday, January 31st. On VoD on Monday, May 25th.

Damsel

Posted on by victorfraga

Samuel Alabaster (Robert Pattinson, in a very convincing performance) is a clumsy cowboy. He’s on a mission to save his wife-to-be Penelope (Mia Wasikowska) from the hands of an evil kidnapper. His sardonic sidekick is the reluctant and makeshift preacher Parson Henry (played by the co-director David Zellner) and the inept duo have brought along the miniature horse Butterscotch. Samuel intends to give the animal to Penelope as a wedding present, in a ceremony intended to take place immediately after the rescue of the poor and vulnerable lady.

But Penelope isn’t as unprotected as Samuel assumed. In fact, the lady can perfectly fend for herself on more than one way. Slowly, the film morphs into a feminist story. The topic of being rescued against one’s will prevails throughout narrative. Women are emotionally strong and perfectly capable of making their own decisions, it soon becomes clear. Conversely, men are irresolute, needy and ineffective.

Damsel starts out as sort of circus ride through wild, wild West. The creatures and characters that Samuel and Parson meet are bizarre, grotesque a primitive. Everyone is rough looking, there’s a blind dog, a disabled midget, animals and people being killed all around. And there’s a twist of puerile humour everywhere. It feels very appropriate for Disney World ride.

The film also has several elements of slapstick – such as Samuel not knowing on which side of the chest his heart is located and being unable to remove a chain from around his neck. Then it tries to become some sort of feminist movie. Penelope is empowered and savvy. In fact, she feels very urban and sophisticated. The film attempts to resonate with the #MeToo movement with some ironic lines about seduction: “you gave me the wrong signs”, cries out one of the males. But instead of coming across as a feminist movie, it just feels like a very old-fashioned screwball comedy (where “kick-ass” females ridiculing men were the norm).

The directors (both of whom also star in the movie) make the difficult decision to kill one of the main characters and big stars long before the end of the movie, just like Marion Crane in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). And just like Janet Leigh’s character, the character also dies in toilet (albeit in very different circumstances, plus there is not shower in here)! Another major difference is that this loss is not compensated by a complex and riveting script following the death and – unlike in Hitchcock’s masterpiece – the narrative becomes banal.

Damsel showed in the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It showed in Competition, but it didn’t win any prizes. In fact numerous journalists walked out of the film throughout the session presumably out of boredom.

On Netflix on Monday, January 18th.

Good Time

Posted on by victorfraga

New York’s long association with the crime film is as old as cinema itself. From film noir to The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971) and obviously to Martin Scorsese, the city’s mesmeric and glamorous qualities have served as poignant antithesis against a character’s base desires, involving gloomy streets filled with mafia, guns and et al. Although not as ridged as these formerly mentioned New York stories, a fresh and innovative addition to the canon is Good Time, directed by the Safdie Brothers (Josh and Bennie). Holding a greater contemporary twist over the likes of Scorsese et al, in terms of its cinematic panache, the co-directors arrange a kaleidoscopic thriller that is as tight and lean as its captivating lead, Robert Pattinson.

Working with Robert Pattinson in a role written specifically for him after seeing the brothers’ previous film Heaven Knows What (2014) – a bleak examination of a young woman’s addiction to heroin – the narrative follows Connie Nikas’ (Pattinson) quest to get his mental disabled brother, Nick, out of jail before anything life-threatening happens to him. Even before the retro Good Time title appears on screen, accompanied by a heavenly synth based score, you gain an intimate understanding of both brothers and their relationship. Connie is charming and manipulative, whilst Nick, played by co director Bennie Safdie, has a constant expression of agony and helplessness.

It is in Nick’s physicality and willingness to do whatever his brother says that lands him in prison after a bank robbery, masterminded by Connie, goes south. From this point onwards, the plot is focused on one specific element; get Nick out of jail. Still, a mission with this much personal investment takes Connie on a roller coaster ride through Queens over the course of an evening. With a hint of the evocative real life filming of Victoria and a reference to the grimy streets of NY, as depicted in Sopranos et al, Good Time is a high octane cinematic ride that will leave you with your mouth wide opening- truly questioning whether you will ever see a better film all year long.

Credited in front and behind the camera, Bennie Safdie excels in an unobtrusive performance as Nick. The emotional complexity in his facial performance is held in close takes by cinematographer Sean Price Williams. Opening in such a close up is a signifier of the film’s attentions upon such a tight camera angle. Similarly, using such a technique focuses the audience’s gaze towards the minutest detail in performance, whilst drawing one further inwards of the narrative. With this extreme close up technique characteristic of the Safdie’s filmmaking, brightly light neon frames accentuate these intimate shots. Varying from all colours of the spectrum, the artistry in the lighting heightens all the cinematic elements of the mise-en-scene. Such visceral lighting charms the brain and upon leaving the cinema, the normal world will be mundane and beige.

Naturally working within the thriller/ crime genre, a certain gratuitous element seems inevitable. Apart from one or two beatings, Good Time is not sadistic or masochistic. Violence, if any, derives from the tension built in abidance. Without a single gun fired, it’s a tightly woven piece of filmic tapestry, not an arrangement of blood, smoke and viciousness.

As the manipulative Connie, Pattinson manages to create a human who produces both disgusts and sympathy; he is a natural-born saviour who has rejected the only paternal figure in his life. His ability to be whoever whenever is undoubtedly a gift. Acting up to police officers in lies that flow effortlessly from his mouth, Pattinson is effectively acting within acting. To Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh) he is her affectionate toy boy. Yet, Connie only sees her as a spare credit card for Nick’s bail money and a free ride around town. In Pattinson’s ability to portray a character so invested in acting and ‘not in his own body at all’, as he told Film Comment in a recent interview, the actor transcends his charming star persona. If his supporting performance in Childhood of a Leader (Brady Corbet, 2017) and James Gray’s The Lost City of Z (2017) illustrated his keen eye for a good, innovative project, then Good Time marks a career-defining moment.

In Good Time, the Safdie’s create something unique, something audacious enough to have your pulse at its mercy. As the credits roll, the brotherly duo chose to let the final scene play out, complemented by Iggy Pop’s The Pure and The Damned. Flowing to a natural conclusion, a moment of poignancy lingers over the final moments. The stillness produced proves a soothing antidote after a ride through the vivid streets of Queens. As I walked out of the cinema, the streets felt boring and dim, Good Time’s visceral charm lingered over me. My only thought was to immediately turn round and experience that filmic trip all over again; sadly I regret not acting upon that thought.

Good Time showed in October at the BFI London Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It is out in cinemas on Friday, November 17th.

Good Time is in out top 10 films of 2017.