Page - 206 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

went mad and killed himself, believing there was “salvation in the light”. By the coda, we know exactly what he means – both characters (and possibly some audiences) tip over the brink from sanity to madness. The question of God (or gods), myths and the spiritual realm is of significance here via the presence of sirens and ghosts, mermaids and manifestations. Both Winslow and Wake wor- ship the light with fundamentalist devotion as the island’s foghorn blares with a liturgical rhythm. “I’m God fearin’, if that’s what yer askin”, quips Ephraim when questioned as to whether he is a praying man. A lone seagull acts as a sort of demonic spirit – the Black Philip of The Lighthouse – in its incessant pestering of Winslow. Gulls contain the souls of dead sailors, says Wake; it’s bad luck to kill a seabird. Could the gull in fact be the deceased former caretaker? Or is it the soul of the man Winslow allowed to perish in his previous employment in the Canadian north? When the bloody confrontation between man and bird fi- nally arrives, it leads to a changing of the winds and the coming of a relentless apocalyptic storm. Akin to the alluring conch-like staircase of the lighthouse, the men’s minds and souls begin to spiral during the storm until they are sucked into oblivion by the maelstrom of mental anguish and metaphysical dread. In- deed, The Lighthouse would pair well with any Bergman, Tarkovsky or Kubrick film as a fellow hallucinatory masterpiece. CINEMATIC ISLAM AND THE CONFLICT OF INTERPRETATIONS The Muslim faith was prominent in three of the films I viewed at Cannes, with each film specifically exploring the tension between conservative/literal and lib- eral/metaphorical interpretations of the Qur’an. Based on an Algerian novel, the animated film Les hirondelles de Kaboul (The Swallows of Kabul, Zabou Bre- itman and Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec, FR 2019) competed in the Un Certain Regard section. The story features a young couple, Mohsen and Zunaira, attempting to keep hope and love alive in the midst of the Taliban-controlled ruins of Kabul. Zunaira is a vivacious artist and former teacher, and her marriage to Mohsen is Fig. 3: The Swallows of Kabul (Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec, FR 2019). Press Still: Cannes Film Festival. 206 | Joel Mayward www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 204–213