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When I watch a movie, I usually have a pretty good idea for my rating shortly after the credits roll, or a day later at most. Leaving the theatre after The Green Knight ended, I genuinely had no idea how I felt. Did I love it? Was I disappointed? Did I even understand half of it? I don’t remember the last time I was so conflicted about my thoughts on a film. Here we are, two days later. After plenty of online research and time to process my thoughts, I can now confidently say this is a great film.
This is not a film for everybody, and that’s okay. some may call it a masterpiece, while others may call it pretentious and boring. Honestly I can understand both points of view, and I wouldn’t argue either. Director David Lowery has crafted a very faithful adaptation of the 14th century Arthurian poem ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’. Those familiar with Arthurian stories with find plenty to sink their teeth into, while general audiences may be a little lost at times.
One thing’s for sure though - This is a bold artistic vision and a contender for the most visually stunning film of the year. The imagery, the cinematography, the visual effects and the editing are astounding, leading to a beautiful and visceral experience that I won’t soon forget. This story leans heavily on symbolism, and even though there was plenty that went over my head, I can’t deny how impressed I was with this storytelling technique.
My only real issue is the pacing, which is methodically slow. Lowery is known for long takes that last forever (Remember when we watched Rooney Mara eat a pie for 4 and a half minutes in A Ghost Story?), but his slow approach to certain scenes isn’t always effective or necessary here. I was sometimes frustrated by the lack of momentum, but the movie is so gorgeous that it’s sluggish pacing can be forgiven.
I would encourage anyone who watches The Green Knight to do a bit of homework afterwards before passing final judgement. Check out the source material or even hop on a forum to see how others interpreted the film. I can guarantee you’ll appreciate this film a lot more after doing so.
8/10
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4.5/5
Fantasy Epic/Adventure
After King Arthur’s (Sean Harris) nephew Gawain (Dev Patel) recklessly accepts the mysterious Green Knight’s (Ralph Ineson) irrevocably binding Christmas game, he must journey to relocate his challenger, on a perilous and hallucinatory quest that tests his manhood and chivalry.
SPOILER WARNING!
How do I begin to discuss The Green Knight? David Lowery’s unconventional take on the anonymously written 14th century Arthurian poem, detailing Gawain’s tale of eager recklessness leading to solemn retribution, is weird, challenging, and mind-bending. In other words, for better or worse, it’s an A24 film. As usual with the distinctive creations of the esteemed indie production company that every cinephile (myself included) is in love with, I have to be in a certain mood to watch this but enjoyability retrospectively fades into the background in significance, when mentally analysing and evaluating this experience. Lowery’s ability to stick so seemingly close to the key points of morality and honour from the source material, while adapting the story to have such a contemporary and ambitious tone, is remarkable, and The Green Knight is demonstrable of truly fantastic filmmaking.
Dev Patel’s nuanced portrayal of Gawain is an intriguing one: not quite noble but not quite childish. Our protagonist begins determined to prove himself but lacks the patience and focus of the other more mature knights of the Round Table. We find him awakening in a brothel with his lover, Essel (Alicia Vikander), in a romance doomed because of the class barrier. Gawain soon hurries to meet the others for the Christmas celebrations, and we immediately get the sense that he doesn’t take his potential role lightly; he’s just young and wants to live how he’d like to. However, everything soon goes to shambles when the Green Knight shows up with a Christmas ‘game’, and most of us know how it goes there: monologue, choppy-chop, “One year hence”. A shocked Round Table applauds Gawain, who doesn’t seem to fully understand the consequences of those actions. As for our Arthur and Guinevere (Kate Dickie), their performances utilise the exact amount of necessary subtlety. These older presentations of them possess an element of age and the resigned realisation of how time eternally marches on, showing the beginning and end of all, as royal and ‘blessed’ as one may be. Their faces alone look like they’ve seen it all and both seem stoic but tired, nicely setting the stage for Gawain to prove himself as a potential successor. I also like that the two characters are only named ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ in the credits, succinctly telling the audience that this story isn’t focused on Gawain’s famous uncle, but rather the titular mystical figure and the young trainee himself.
Lowery then jumps the timeline forward by a year, with an astute subtitle along the lines of how it had been “one year too quick”, and Gawain prepares to embark on his dooming journey, after a year of anxious consideration and eventual acceptance. Now, this is where the surrealness is soon to begin. The film can be broken down into multiple sections that collectively recall the narrative structure of tales as old as that of the Green Knight, each one heavily imbued with symbolism and notions of morality. Gawain comes across various side quests, the first one being his encounter with a seemingly good-willed young man (Barry Keoghan), who has a secretly malignant agenda. After our protagonist is robbed and left for dead by him and his desperate cohorts, all hope seems lost, conveyed by a painstakingly slow take of about 360 degrees that comes around to show a skeleton, rotting away in nature. However, the camera rotates back around to show him deciding that his purpose was not complete until he faced his ultimate destiny, and he demonstrates resilience when he fights to break his imposing bonds, through his first bare-knuckle scrape with death. Despite the relevance of Keoghan’s character in this section, he’s simply referred to as ‘Scavenger’, reminding the audience of A24’s unconventional prioritisation of the theme or message over the minor characters themselves. This first misadventure acts to throw him literally and figuratively off his high horse and prove that his decision to commit wasn’t going to be the easiest part of this journey. Detrimentally missing some of his attire and the Green Knight’s axe, he continues on his way, proving that the young and inexperienced Gawain is more than just a pretty face.
Our next encounter beholds Saint Winifred (an unsettling Erin Kellyman), who was historically said to have been beheaded by the son of a local prince after his advances were rejected. This segment is where things start to get especially weird, but it boils down to a test of Gawain’s selflessness, as a human and potential future knight. While he’s consequently rewarded with what had been lost, Winifred gave no prior promise of this, and simply asked for him to retrieve her physical head from the close-by pond, to put her (undead) mind at ease. Colour is used distinctly, from the murky navy-blue of the mist to the alarming, crimson red when Gawain submerges himself into the water. Here, the lines of reality are blurred with eerie tricks being played on our protagonist, such as the skeletal head in his hands briefly appearing as a regular, human one, after Gawain sees the rest of Saint Winifred’s physical body waiting in her home. Lowery efficiently utilises elements of folk horror to craft suspense, and uniquely tie into archaic mythology.
Rule of three: you can guess that Gawain’s trials are not over just yet. One interspersion of giants, talking foxes and ominous hallucinations later, Gawain is greeted by a Lord (Joel Edgerton, an underrated commander of subtlety) and his Lady (Alicia Vikander, mind-bendingly pulling off dual roles), and his relaxing stay at their wealthy abode initially seems like a blessing of earned peace. However, this section brings out Gawain’s uglier side, as the Lady strives to tempt him into laying with her, despite her seemingly healthy marriage to his generous benefactor, and his commitment to Essel. The Lady’s resemblance of Essel is no coincidence, and tests whether Gawain’s loyalty is to person or body. Throughout all media, the portrayal of sexual desire can massively vary the intended messages and implications of a specific scene or part of a text etc. While it’s a natural experience for many people, things like religious codes and some cultures have historically invoked a taboo that indulging in them, even in solely healthy contexts, can be evil or a work of the devil, which serves as an example of how representation can drastically alter meaning. In my opinion, a lot of these taboos are completely outdated, but infidelity is still obviously wrong. That’s because the accompanying aspects of emotional awareness and morality remain unarguably relevant to a modern audience, and The Green Knight is an interesting study in its relating portrayal. As the Green Knight’s paganism seeps into the cracks of the religious orientation of this story, the film isn’t bothered about the premarital status of Gawain’s actions but rather it tests his devotion broadly; if he can’t reject the temptation to indulge his selfish desires, then why should he be granted knighthood, with his code deemed honourable and his legacy deemed brave? These themes are nicely tied up in a bow by Vikander’s mesmerising monologue about the colour ‘green’ and its existence as a symbol of omnipotent, nature. It’s described as “what lust leaves behind” and something that Gawain’s skin, bones and virtue will “succumb to”, which I interpreted to represent his guilt and the consequences of his impulsive disloyalty. After he loses self-control and gives in to temptation, Vikander’s cold delivery of “You are no knight” solidifies his ultimate failure, almost acting metaphorically as the voice of an upper force judging Gawain and orchestrating his quest. A brief encounter with the knowledgeable Lord forces Gawain to confront his own wrongdoing and cowardice, as he scrambles towards the end of his journey.
Opening with the cheery subtitle “A Beheading at the Green Chapel”, the film’s ending section is a brilliant and fitting climax to this epic. After Gawain arrives to meet his fate, he anticipatingly waits through the night for the Green Knight to awake, before frequently hesitating to allow him to deliver the killing blow, displaying that he doesn’t yet feel ready, which is also signified by his lingering possession of the green sash, that is to protect him from harm. The ending displays his final chance to accept his mistakes and willingly go with dignity, and he initially doesn’t seem to fulfil it, as we see a harrowing vision into Gawain’s future if he left untimely. It’s an unsettling sight, filled with cruelty and corruption, as he’s presented to be a poison to those who love him and his kingdom alike. Like a strangely self-aware, alternate ending, that also acts as a cautionary tale for Gawain, who then bravely decides to remove the sash and stop running. While ambiguous endings can come off as frustrating and pretentious, The Green Knight showcases a perfectly executed one, with the eponymous character delivering a final line that induces delicious indefiniteness when we unresolvedly cut to credits. Whether the Green Knight meant “Off with your head” or “Off, with your head”, the ending is still satisfying, as our central protagonist demonstrates a final act of valour to complete his journey and matures as a character. Since Gawain willingly accepted to die, his potential survival would likely have grown into a more noble and kind life but, either way, he passed the test of proving himself worthy of knighthood, so I can imagine that Lowery’s take may have been that seeing any more of the character’s true future wouldn’t matter, which is an interpretation that I’m personally happy to go along with.
A crucial element of The Green Knight is the atmosphere and world that it so delicately crafts. Andrew Droz Palermo’s cinematography presents an individual work of art in every shot and commands a visual mastery that enhances the scale and authenticity of this film. The gorgeous colour palette fluidly balances the rich greens, the sublime yellows, the perilous reds and the solemn greys, bringing an entrancing effect that captures the eye and engages the mind. Daniel Hart’s haunting score employs perturbing dissonance, elevating the air of mind-bending mystery, as well as traditional strings, such as what sounded like a lute or harp, to link into the period setting. One of my favourite tracks was ‘Tell Me A Tale Of Yourself, So That I Might Know Thee’, as it quietly offered a serene sense of adventure and destiny: a calm before the storm, as the tone of which was soon to be thrown into challengingly murky waters of morality. Another standout, ‘Now I’m Ready, I’m Ready Now’, underscored the vision of Gawain’s alternate fate, in which Hart utilised uneasy vibrato to tangibly imbue the scene with a feeling of sinister foreboding. Overall, the music is bold, versatile and it’s what generic cinema often fails to be these days: experimental and unique. Another major part of The Green Knight is the symbolism, which is established from the offset, as the film alarmingly opens on the distinct image of Gawain being on fire, in what seems to be a weird, metaphorical ritual. The fox that accompanies Gawain on part of his journey serves an interesting role, perhaps suiting the traditional character archetype of the ‘helper’ and existing as his guardian angel, linking to the connotations of spirituality and divine beauty attached to the animal. However, there were points, like in the opening, where I felt that the symbolism became too heavy. To be fair, this may have been due to the confining limits to my depth of knowledge surrounding the source material and Arthurian mythology, but this doesn’t change the fact that my fairly frequent lack of understanding of what certain things meant and what was even going on in some scenes, in combination with the overly languid pacing, caused this film to be art that I wholly appreciated but found it sometimes difficult to be entertained by. As I mentioned earlier, The Green Knight is definitely a film that I have to be in a certain mood for, so I would suggest against making my classic blunder of watching it on a Friday night, after an exhausting week of working.
Despite The Green Knight’s straining of the limits to consistent engagement, I do think that it’s an awe-inspiring work of art, that’s magnificently directed and thematically thoughtful. This is pretty much A24 on top form, and an impeccable demonstration of how the production studio wonderfully provides lesser-known filmmakers with the opportunity to birth and share their original, weird and unprecedented creations with the world. This film is a prime example of why I love A24 and am intrigued to experience any future projects hailing from it. My brief warning would be to not expect Lord of the Rings; this film isn’t even remotely trying to be commercial. Overall, I would recommend The Green Knight specifically to fans of fantasy and adventure who can enjoy a strange but rewarding slow-burn.
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Lowery’s 2021 fantasy epic, “The Green Knight”, adapted from the original poem, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, is a masterclass in restrained story telling and ponders wonderfully at what it means to be a knight in a messed up high fantasy coming of age flick.
Story wise, its quite bare bones. On one Christmas, a monstrous green knight, given a unique and booming identity by Ralph Ineson, challenges Sir Arthur’s (Sean Harris) knights of the round table to a game – strike him once, and in one year’s time, he shall return the blow in the same manner. Arthur’s nephew, Gawain (Dev Patel), accepts and chops off the knight’s head in a single mighty blow. The knight, not dying, picks up his head, reminds Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel in one year, and rides out laughing. The rest of the film now follows this journey, where he shall meet all manner of trouble including bandits, spirits, and other supernature phenomena as he seeks to complete his promise.
First thing I must compliment is though I called the story bare bones, just as Lowery’s first outing, the experience he builds upon it is quite astonishing and leaves little wanting. His approach is slow and deliberate – we see almost every step of his journey, each fantastical creature he encounters, and how his resolve slowly wains as he learns of the horrors committed by others “honorable” knights. One of my favourite shots comes when right when he is taken into the castle and he finds comfortable rest for the first time in days. The camera sees his from the sky, laying calmy in a bed, as the drapes block us in, as if the allure of comfort is trapping him, locking him inside and stopping him from his arduous quest. The cinematography is strong throughout the runtime, feeling expanse and beautiful when needed and small and nimble at others.
The performances are also great, with Dev Patel doing a spectacular job as Gawain. His portrayal of the tortured knight really sold me on his inner conflict between life and bravery. Ralph Ineson’s voice just fits the larger-than-life green knight and gives him a commanding presence fitting his power. There are other great performances, but we don’t spend much time with them as we do these two but lay assured you won’t find any lacking.
This section will be a bit spoiler-y as I discuss Gawain’s character so read with caution or skip to the end. I find Gawain to be a fascinating character. He is the youngest of Sir Arthur’s knights, and as pointed in a conversation at the beginning, one lacking a true tale of his own. And so, when the Green Knight shows up with a challenge, it presents an opportunity he cannot ignore. But this one decision, this showcase of strength, sends him down a path he will never overcome. As the film progresses, we come across many strangers, but the one that linger beyond are the Sir and the Lady of the castle. Here, the woman offers Gawain a sash that will save him from any physical harm. He, worn out by his journey and fearing his seemingly inevitable death, takes it, and the woman, disappointed, says he “is no knight”. This small bit of dialogue strikes him at his core, as he runs out of the caste to face his destiny and meet the knight. By as the knight is about to swing his axe, Gawain reflects on what the future will hold for him. He sees that even if he survives, he will never be able to take the sash off, as it represents his act of cowardice. He may become a great king, but he will never become a great knight. Even if his neck is safe, his ego will forever be cut. And finally, facing down the axe and hit with this realization, he removes the sash, making himself vulnerable once more, and asks the knight to do what he must, to which the Green Knight smiles. Though the movie cuts away before we find out what happens next, it doesn’t even really matter. This whole journey was about Gawain needing to decide what sort of man he wanted to become, and now that he has chosen to face death, to hold up his vow, he has made that decision and anything beyond is simply irrelevant. This beautiful yet compelling journey makes him one my favorite protagonists put to film in recent memory.
Overall, I found the Green Knight to be epic fantasy done right. Its no Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, but a quiet mediation on a character who must choose between the life fitting of the brave knights he has grown with or something more comfortable, even if it costs him his pride. If you find character driven drama and cinematic imagery to be your thing, this is a must watch that will have you pondering long after the credits roll. I give the Green Knight a 9/10.
By @_xkrow_
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4/5
A young Sir Gawain (Patel) accepts a challenge from a mystical creature in a bid for honor and glory. But when the time comes to complete his quest, he must face not only his deadly foe but his own cowardice and inadequacy.
The Green Knight is a loose retelling of the 14th century Arthurian tale, entirely deconstructing and repurposing the story. It serves as a dissection of the ideas of manhood, heroism, honor, bravery, and morality. And while its message is obscured by some bewildering elements, the film serves as a cautionary tale and a searing condemnation of moral relativity.
Dev Patel gives a true movie star performance, capturing the essence of his character with tragic perfection. Gawain, a would-be knight, sacrifices personal integrity for fame and glory, slowly descending into greater and greater moral failure through a series of decisions he justifies for his greater good. Vikander, Eggerton, and Choudhry also work well with the material, but the reworking of their characters creates more confusion than cohesion.
This movie is beautiful, an epic in scope, and a showcase of director David Lowery’s exquisite visual eye. Filmed in Ireland, there are so many stunning and fantastical locations that, with the help of only minimal CGI, enhance both the beauty and menace of the story.
The Green Knight is sparsely written, relying on imagery and suggestion more than dialogue and exposition. This minimalist approach causes the second act to drag and the film can be a bit of a slog as it seems more caught up in its own self-importance than telling a cohesive narrative. However, a truly surprising, shocking, and intellectually challenging final act saves this film from being a pretentious mess.
Hot take: The film often feels overly impressed with itself, but Dev Patel and a killer ending elevate this into a worthwhile think-piece.
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