The Green Knight is basically a movie about nothing. Just as Seinfeld was pitched as a show about nothing. The difference is, Seinfeld was brilliant while The Green Knight really does add up to nothing. I know the film is from the A24 studio which means quite obtuse and artsy fartsy, but that doesn’t excuse the cinematic failure. The professional critics gave the film a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, but these are the same folks who go nuts over any Japanese film with French subtitles.
My own creds as an edgy cinephile should not be easily dismissed. I was an art house devotee during my hippie days in Bezerkley. I dug the French new wave and the films by Truffaut, Godard, and Bazin. I sat through Kurosawa’s samurai movies and pretended I understood Fellini’s symbolism. The foibles of youth, though these films soared in comparison to The Green Knight.
First, check out the basic plot of the 14th century poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” based on the Arthurian legends. Sir Gawain chops off the Green Knight’s head; the Green Knight says he will return the favor in a year. After the year, Gawain is wearing a magic belt to protect him from harm. The Green Knight nicks Gawain’s neck with the axe, but doesn’t kill him and tells Gawain he should have been honest about wearing that belt. Gawain is kinda ashamed, but the Green Knight sends Gawain on to Camelot with chivalric best wishes. The knights of the round table welcome Gawain back and decide to also wear a similar belt because their boy Gawain is “the dude.”
The film version is a dumpster fire fueled by a weird synthesizer soundtrack that sounds like angry bees. If you don’t already know the 80 page poem in Old English, you are in deep doo doo. Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) has all these adventures that have no understandable connective context. Hell, little of it is in the actual poem. Gawain gets mugged; loses his horse, sword and axe: hangs out with this beheaded chick; is constantly followed by a talking red fox; runs into naked giants, stays in this castle with a noble guy, an old blind lady and then gets seduced by the guy’s hot to trot wife (Alicia Vikander ) who mumbles inaudibly and gives Gawain the magic protective belt which Gawain gladly takes off at the end so the Green Knight can then take off Gawain’s head. The end.
Bad story line. In the poem, Gawain lives happily ever after. But in the film Gawain has to die because he realizes his whole life has been crap, and the sun is never going to come out anyway. Talk about a major bummer. No upside to sitting through two hours of maudlin self-flagellation. Dev should go back to the brightness of Slumdog Millionaire and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. At least they let him crack a smile.
Finally, the professional critics are having the vapors over the “stunning” cinematography. If your idea of effective cinematography is the equivalent of hanging a ten watt bulb in a dark closet, then have at it. Fifty shades of grey. I think the sun almost peeked out when Gawain was about to croak. As far as great cinematography goes, David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia this ain’t. Even the dark palette of Apocalypse Now made sense and garnered a deserved Oscar. The Green Knight is like being stuck in Ohio during a dreary winter.
This movie was four hours of my life which I will never get back; two hours for the movie, two hours for this pithy analysis. Instead, I could have gone to Jungle Cruise and fixated on Dwayne Johnson’s ripped biceps.