The Green Knight (2021)

Jun 21

Off with the audience’s head.

Presentation:

The film utilizes color, mainly green, yellow and red for symbolic and evocative effect. Lots of haze used in this film, overall has a nice medieval setting with some lush scenery. Slow motion and interesting use of 360 degrees pans are utilized for certain effects, but at some point it becomes irritating once the pseudo intellectual facade is lifted.

Analysis:

The film is based on a Arturian poem, which just means King Arthur's round table. The film explicitly states this is not a heroic story where the noble adventurer lifts a sword out of stone, but one of shame. Dev Patel has failure to launch, no tales to tell, and feels underserving of greatness, even pushed by his mother. Shame drives him to commit to the Christmas game quest challenged by a green knight, conjured up by Gawain's mother whom is a magical witch and sister of King Arthur. Green is explicitly referenced to be symbolic of nature, life, decay, everything humans fight. This can also be seen as an environmental metaphor. You try to chop of the head of the forest, you also need to pay the price. He sets the quest and the protective mother sends him off most notably with a magical belt of protection, a symbol of motherly protectiveness, or smothering depending how you look at it. Along the journey, many mystical events occur in folktale mythical fashion, which shouldn't be interpreted literally. A ghost he meets in the middle of the night wants her head back, whom looks similar to his future queen. She also got her head cut off because she tried to escape from a un-noble man. Gawain retrieves it in the red spring, and puts it back on her body, and then she reveals that the green knight is someone he knows. Gawain wants to keep his head but by running he might just end up losing it anyway as well. The fox guides Gawain through the quest, whom is later revealed to actually be his mother once she speaks. He finds a large manor and is saved by the lord played by Joel Edgarton, who looks very similar to the green knight, because he is. The woman with him also looks exactly like his girlfriend at home, but a prettied up version played by Alicia Vikander. She represents a lot of his doubt, testing his knighthood, which he fails by climaxing and resisting her kiss. Meanwhile the old woman uses the same blindfold as Gawain's witch mother, suggesting they are the same, she is still pulling the strings behind this trial. The blindfolded woman even caresses Gawain's head the same way. The lord states that anything you receive in the manor must be given back to him in exchange for food. He mentions it as a game just like the beginning, so he takes a kiss from Gawain for the infidelity, but Gawain doesn't give back the belt of protection. Yellow represents cowardice. Through a lot of color grading and his initial wardrobe, we can witness his cowardice again in the final interaction. He runs away home in shame, always clutching onto his magical belt, which protects him but is also his source of shame. This is kind of like the smothering of a parent that hinders some men from becoming independent, a failure to launch. Lots of visions, what ifs, artistic camera work to make you think it's also part of a master design. In reality, the film doesn't know how to end because there is nothing to end, it's just a bunch of themes interwoven but not connected in a cohesive way.

Conclusion:

This film relies on the audience to not fully understand what is going on with just enough metaphors sprinkled in to give you the benefit of the doubt that this film is avant garde thematic greatness. Even the prostitute understands, "Is goodness not enough?" Themes have no connection and are poorly implemented, purposely ambiguous to make audiences feel this is a philosophical story. It's not, but what it does accomplish is maybe you'll read the poem and have a discussion afterward. Unfortunately it is a puzzle no one can piece together, blindly swinging in the darkness with a glass of wine in the other hand. The only themes you can really make out from this symbolic charade are shame, honor and nature. Once you peer through the haze of artistic cinematography, you'll realize how unsubstantial this film really is. The film confidently presents itself, but the writers don't understand what they made any better than you do. Lowery could have kept this story an old Arturian poem, but he tainted it with unnecessary themes, ruining its core. There are much better films with thematic symbolism. The Northman is a better version than this.

more rotten chilis