Cinematic Point Of View

Mariya Saakyan‘s feature film ‘The Lighthouse’ (also called ‘Mayak’) is a quiet, visually poetic look at how war changes ordinary people, especially women and the older generations. It is a truly unique and haunting meditation on the effects of war and memory. I watched it last week and I have been thinking about it ever since.

In the film, we follow the journey of a young woman named Lena (Anna Kapaleva) who travels from Moscow back to her rural Armenian hometown during a war. Once there, Lena attempts to convince her grandparents to leave town and return to Moscow. Lena soon realizes that escaping is not so simple.

Lena’s journey is one of inner resilience and how she struggles to hold on to a certain tenderness in a world lost in the smoke of violence and destruction.

The cinematography by Maxim Drozdov is otherworldly. I felt transported. The film uses deep blues, greens, and browns to give everything a sort of faded memory feeling. It’s dark and rich and earthy. It’s full of a long shots filled with misty mountains, dark tunnels, flocks of blackbirds, and crumbling stone villages.

My simple words cannot express how beautiful and captivating this film looks.

The musical score by Kimmo Pohjonen adds another earthy layer to this cinematic dream state. Never overbearing or played on top of an emotional moment, Kimmo’s score lives and breathes all around the story, helping shape these dreamy scenes, rather than fencing them in.

And then there’s Lena, played by Anna Kapaleva. Anna’s performance is full of subtle, emotional depth, and quiet restraint. She seems lost between childhood and adulthood, wandering back and forth through her memories, yet striving to move forward. She’s a survivor.

For a film that has large stretches of minimal dialogue and chooses atmospheric plot ambiguity over backstory, it’s a true testament to Anna’s skills as an actor that she manages to can still anchor this film and keep you invested.

It’s also a testament to how director Mariya Saakyan’s is able to capture Anna’s gentle performance through this war torn road of the mind. Sadly, Saakyan’s young life was cut short by cancer in 2018 at the age of 37.

After ‘The Lighthouse,’ Saakyan made two more feature films, ‘I’m Going to Change My Name’ and ‘Entropy.’ I have been unable to track down either of these films down. If you are reading this and have a lead on where I might view either of these films, please leave a comment or send me a message. I would love to see more of Saakyan’s work.

I picked up a copy of ‘The Lighthouse’ on Blu-Ray from Second Run DVD. The 2K transfer is gorgeous (I never use this word, but it’s true) and the extras consist of a 2003 short film by Mariya Saakyan, a visual essay about ‘The Lighthouse’ itself, and a written interview in the case slipcover.

Be warned that ‘The Lighthouse’ is incredibly abstract work of art and could be a challenge for some viewers looking for more linear structure and character arcs. If you are a fan of Russian cinema, you will likely love this movie though. I’d say it’s Andrei Tarkovsky adjacent, but still truly it’s own unique vision.