Quincy Abeyie wrote:
@[deleted] The Lighthouse is the kind of movie I've come to appreciate more after reading others takes on it, as I didn't quite know what to make of it myself.
[spoiler]An interesting one is that Pattinson's character (I don't remember the characters' names) actually did kill his past partner and has been doomed to repeat the process again and again without realizing it. Dafoe's character tries to tell Pattinson what actually happened as he is a symbol of Pattinson's partners. Pattinson's missing eye at the end showing that he condemned himself by killing the one-eyed bird.
This is also supported by Pattinson being supposed to represent Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and was punished by being chained to a rock and eaten alive by birds only to regenerate every night so the punishment could last forever. Dafoe is apparently representing the sea god Proteus. He knows everything about the sea, and although he don't want to share this forbidden knowledge he is eventually tricked by humans into sharing it. Once I read up on the stories it seems obvious enough that the lighthouse is both the fire and the forbidden knowledge etc., but I didn't know any of it beforehand to be honest.[/spoiler]
Thanks for sharing mate 🙂
[spoiler]
I find myself open to all of the above and makes sense in retrospect, even if it didn't at the time. Here are some ways I've interpreted the film:
A) Loose interpretation of two Wickies actually going insane during a storm, with surrealist and supernatural events woven in. This is based off the Pembrokeshire event in 1801 where one of two wickies (both named Thomas) died. Like the rabbit and black goat in 'The Witch' Eggers embeds the supernatural through creatures and casts light on the immorality of man, treating them as victims in a folktale.
B) Winslow is possibly an individual from a ship wreck trying to find shore or has had found shore for sometime and is hallucinating in a mortally wounded state. Hence, the movie reflects his hallucinations in his mind in which he lionizes the distant light of the lighthouse, encounters muses, is traumatized by seeing a crewman drown, and is possibly guided by Proteus (self-conjured or not). Some flashes of sexual inadequacy/fustration and incompetence at work maybe blended into this hallucination and a reflection of a long time at sea. Eventually a climax in delirium and he is brought to reality of being pecked apart.
C) Basically what you said. Abstraction of purgatory. Winslow is reincarnated to repeat these events kind of like Prometheus. He is paying for his complicity in someone's death at his previous job. The Lighthouse is his test to overcome his guilt, his deterioration state where excessive drinking leads to unravelled work ethic. Wake is like Proteus testing him. He seems to succeed up to middle of the arc with Wake telling him one day you'll be able to keep the light, but ultimately he falls short and gives in.
[/spoiler]
