The Legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table has been mined for film adaptations for decades.
There’s been classic fantasy like Excalibur, spoofs like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or as an obscure reference point for works like Knightriders (which I just reviewed here).
Yet there was still room for a different take.
David Lowery’s The Green Knight is a modern update of the tale of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight by the Anonymous Poet.
Not a swashbuckling, chivalric adventure fans will be eager to cosplay, this is a slow-burning, contemplative fantasy.
Initially set for a 2020 debut at South by Southwest, its release was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Luckily, the film saw a delayed release in 2021 and made $18.9 million against its $15 million budget.
With everything happening then, I remembered the intriguing trailer, yet I only now got around to watching it.
But if I had made time for it two years ago, I’d be revisiting this jewel of a film already.
So why did this movie deserve more attention?
The Plot of The Green Knight
At Christmas, Gawain (Dev Patel) is woken up by his lover, Essel (Alicia Vikander) in a brothel.
After being lashed out at by Mother (Sarita Choudhury), Gawain goes to the feast hosted by his uncle – none other than the King (Sean Harris).
Meanwhile, Mother performs a magic ritual that summons an otherworldly Green Knight (Ralph Ineson).
The knight enters the king’s court, asking who among them will dare to join him in a game. He will allow one of the knights to strike a blow on him, and in one year, they will meet him at a green chapel in the north, where he shall return the blow.
Gawain rises to the occasion. Taking his uncle’s sword, he slices the Green Knight’s head off.
But the Green Knight’s body places its head back on its shoulders and leaves, repeating the location and date to meet again.
As a year passes, will Gawain have the courage to complete the Green Knight’s challenge?
The Good Things
Beautiful Visual Storytelling
Your eyes will thank you for watching this one.
The Green Knight can’t help but be visually exceptional, even at would-be mundane moments.
Though it’s highly original, it’s as if Terrence Malick’s The New World meets Guillermo del
Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. We explore an expansive world with wonder yet are haunted by darker imagery.
Whether it’s a wide shot of Gawain traversing rugged terrain or preparing to meet his destiny, the lighting and color are like wading in magic.
Props like the children’s puppet show and costumes like in a wedding scene or the King and Queen’s saintly crowns transport us entirely elsewhere.
And the Green Knight is not a man in shining armor but an earthly monster, a knotty green pile of twisted roots.
Lastly, the old-fashioned letters on the screen, marking chapter headings, are a nice link to the poem it’s based on.
And despite the beauty, the camerawork and production design always felt relevant rather than self-indulgent.
Take, for example, the simple but elegant camera movement in the long take as Gawain comes across a battlefield and meets Scavenger (Barry Keoghan).
Depth of Character
Like the difference between a classic white hat (good guy) black hat (bad guy) classic western compared with Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, The Green Knight, this time around, isn’t a straightforward chivalric tale of a man resisting temptations and winning the day.
Here we have a young heir to the throne who spends his time in a brothel, not quite committed to his lover.
His mother practices the occult.
And worst of all, he’s a knight without a story to tell.
Where once the Arthurian Code was straightforward and gleaming white, here it’s like a flickering candle in the darkness that could be snuffed out at any minute.
Gawain is not larger than life. He’s human and complicated.
Open Ended
Poems are often open to interpretation, and this film based on a poem follows that amorphous line.
Much of the dialogue feels more symbolic than literal, especially The Lady’s (also Alicia Vikander) monologue about why the knight is green.
We don’t know the truth about Gawain, but he doesn’t seem to either.
You can pull out clear themes here – the Green Knight, the earth, seems to be at odds with humanity over power.
Or you could ask if our honor and duty are worth the price we may have to pay to have it.
Ambiguity can be frustrating, but here it provides value.
Dev Patel as Gawain
Patel’s brooding and vulnerable performance is flawless and vital. We feel Gawain’s inner turmoil, which is at the movie’s heart.
He doesn’t have a thousand-yard stare, but his face carries the weight of what’s on his mind.
We feel his fear when he faces the Green Knight or desire when tempted by the Lady (and we must sympathize with Gawain here. Most of us face the temptation of a last slice of pizza, not a character played by Alicia Vikander.)
It was a challenging role to play. Most of the story is told visually rather than through dialogue. And Gawain is in nearly every scene, often all alone in the frame.
Visual Storytelling
Talk about showing and not telling. I remember about a handful of lines of expositional dialogue.
We know a year has passed based on the wheel of the seasons in the puppet show. We can tell the king’s health is failing based on his frail appearance.
But the crowning glory comes near the film’s end, a dreamlike sequence that could win a montage contest. It plays out over years and shows us everything running through Gawain’s mind.
The Not-As-Good Things:
No, Not the CGI!
Oh, the dreaded CGI (computer-generated images): the scorn of many movie purists such as myself, though often a necessary evil.
The production design of this movie avoided CGI in many instances. Still, it gets frustrating in a couple of ways.
Gawain’s fox companion is a shimmering pile of pixels that stuck out so much it pulled me out of the movie.
It’s sad when you consider how well a picture like Babe Pig in the City was able to pull off talking animal effects years ago.
It’s a well-documented rule of filmmaking never to work with live animals. Still, I’m disappointed a film of this visual quality couldn’t find a solution.
And the giants (which I’m not sure is a CGI effect) are a neat inclusion to the story’s fantasy but look hollow and ghostly.
Luckily, these characters have little screen time. So they only drag the visual splendor down a splinter or two.
Not an Action Piece or Laugh in Sight
Some audiences may struggle to sit through ~2 hours of a heady journey.
While many things happen, this is a knight movie without a duel, a castle defense, or a wizard battle.
And there isn’t a joke at any point in the film.
I’ll defend the movie, as it needed to keep the subdued tone of the story, but it may make it hard for some audiences to get to the finish line.
Go Watch The Green Knight
The Green Knight is a visual delight, a film you could justify watching just to see it sparkle.
It amps up the myth while injecting the film with a thoughtful tone.
But its superpower is showing you constant eye magic while concealing its deeper meaning, which you’ll have to look for almost within yourself.
I cannot find my own conclusion to what this movie means, but rather than find that frustrating, it only makes me want to revisit it again (though for those that like closure, fear not: plenty of explanations seem to exist on YouTube).
So if you’re looking for action-packed Sword and Sorcery or to be regaled with lively tales of Arthurian chivalry, you’d be mistaken to look here.
But if you want a film to take you on an atmospheric journey with a hero in conflict with himself, this is your ride.
I’m happy to set The Green Knight in its rightful place as one of my new favorites and look forward to my next viewing.
The Green Knight is rated R and was directed by David Lowery.
You can watch it free on Pluto TV or other streaming sites.
You can watch the trailer here.
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