The Green Knight is not a film that is going to please every crowd. Some audiences will walk away with nothing but questions. But, for those who see film as an art, those with a love of visual storytelling, and those who want to feel the power of myth brought to life, The Green Knight is an overwhelming masterpiece.
This film comes to the big screen from A24, who have become the kingmakers of independent cinema with culturally dominant pieces of art such as Midsommar, Moonlight, and The Lighthouse. The film is written and directed by David Lowery, best known for meditative supernatural drama A Ghost Story and the 2016 adaptation of Pete's Dragon.
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The Green Knight is an adaptation of an ancient chivalric romance poem set in the Arthurian canon and written by an unknown author sometime in the 14th century. The work has been adapted to film twice before and has also been the basis for a handful of TV episodes and a short film or two. The tale centers around Sir Gawain, nephew of King Arthur and honorable knight of the Round Table who accepts a challenge from a mysterious Green Knight. Gawain is allowed to strike the Knight once, whereupon in one year's time, the blow will be dealt back to him. Gawain beheads the mysterious knight, then must endure a mystical quest to meet his fate and prove his honor. The film follows the tale in most major ways, but imbues the material with visceral new sensory details which change everything.
The Green Knight is, above all else, a visually overwhelming tone poem about honor, ambition, and the concept of myth-making. It is an absolute work of art, spellbinding from its opening frames to its final fade to black. The cinematography is reverent of the setting, sweeping patiently to demonstrate the awe-inspiring scale of the architecture or the magical splendor of nature. The film masterfully blends realistic portrayal of life as a medieval peasant with ethereal dreamscapes in a way that makes the on-screen world feel truly magical. The imagery is staggering, this film will burn its reality into the eyes of its viewers.
The brilliant visual design is matched with note-perfect sound design. The orchestral accompaniment are blended with diegetic noise, spoken dialogue is occasionally enhanced with magic to chilling effect, the soundtrack signals and evokes a scene's sudden shift from horror to romance with fanfare. The titular Green Knight is a perfect example: a horrific design whose every lumbering movement is accompanied by the chorus of shifting wood and dirt as if a tree is falling with every step he takes. Taken together, the film could almost carry itself without a spoken word; it is a powerfully evocative piece of cinema.
The characters are modernized and blessed with a new sense of real personhood. they are fully 3-dimensional characters where their predecessors were moral avatars. Dev Patel is fantastic in the lead role; this is a hugely demanding part and Patel delivers at every turn. The film sees Gawain in nearly every emotional state one could care to name and Patel's performance sells it every single time, on top of being an extremely physical performance. Much of the film's brilliance comes from Gawain, who appears less as a noble knight and more as a regular man tasked with self-sacrifice. He is humanity at its best; charismatic, overambitious, impulsive, vulnerable, lustful, indecisive, humble and above all else, sincere. It is a powerhouse performance that will, by any metric, keep Dev Patel in the public consciousness forever.
Joel Edgerton and Alicia Vikander are both excellent as well, each delivering soliloquies that could sound ridiculous from an unsure or weak performer, but come across as dynamic from these veterans. Sean Harris' turn as King Arthur is outstanding as well, conveying a towering gravitas as the legendary king, a sincere vulnerability as an old man, and the specific distant affection of a less present relative simultaneously. Erin Kellyman, best known as the main antagonist of Marvel's Falcon and the Winter Soldier, appears in a small but charming role as Winifred which brings some unusual humor to the affair. Not every secondary character is a great performance; one or two minor characters seem silly, but the overwhelming majority of the cast crushes the material.
The biggest stumbling block for this film will be its bold and decisive weirdness. Make no mistake, this is not a crowd-pleasing blockbuster. Audiences will not be applauding, nor should they be. The Green Knight follows a bizarre structure with chapter headings, bizarre asides, and deeply ambiguous elements. Some will be turned off by the film's presentation, but this is an art film that earns the title. The ideal viewing circumstances would be in a fully silent, pitch-black theater. Moviegoers who can enjoy a film for its masterful craftsmanship, brilliant performance, clever metanarrative, and inspired sensory experience will be obsessed with The Green Knight. Audiences who demand fight scenes, quick-cut action, and crystal clear storytelling will likely not be satisfied.
Once upon a time, the stories now thought of as ancient myths were the entertainment of the day, told around fires or printed into manuscripts. At its heart, The Green Knight is about stories and the power they hold. The stated intention of the film seems to be to take Arthurian legend, routinely the stuff of bored language arts classes or butchered action shlock, and reinvigorate the power it once held. Lowery seeks to give modern audiences what the unnamed author gave ancient audiences: a defining legend that will alter the world it is born into. To that end, The Green Knight is as moving as it is unnerving, as haunting as it is erotic, and as grim as it is inspiring. This film carries with it the power that stories can have, only when imbued with true creativity.
The Green Knight is a work of art that does not come along often, and anyone with even the slightest love of cinema owes it to themselves to seek it out. Through the right eyes, this film carries as much power as the myths that have stood centuries to inspire it.
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