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| Courtesy of A24 Films |
The
anonymous Middle English 14th century medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, that Arthurian tale of chivalric
romance concerning King Arthur’s knight of the round table Sir Gawain who
accepts a challenge to the death from a mystical “Green Knight”, has remained
an indelible component of heroic European fantasy adventure lore in
contemporary literary and cinematic fiction.
Originally comprised of a series of poems chronicling the protagonist’s
odyssey, the collection directly influenced such prominent fantasy authors as
J.R.R. Tolkien and Simon Armitage as well as spawning numerous cinematic
adaptations such as Gawain and the Green
Knight in 1973 and again with Sword
of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
The
latest long-awaited (and still delayed in some territories) big screen
adaptation of the text, simply called The
Green Knight, comes from none other than A24 and A Ghost Story director David Lowery and as such represents both a
modern interpretation as well as an artistic deconstruction of the text
itself. Starring Dev Patel in the leading
role as Sir Gawain who accepts the challenge to behead The Green Knight provided he accepts a return blow from the blade
of the knight a year later, Lowery’s scenic, psychedelic odyssey through the
Middle-Ages awash with fantastical magical realism is a hypnotic sensory feast
as well as one of the most peculiar new imaginings of a renowned literary text
in recent memory.
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| Courtesy of A24 Films |
Largely
episodic in form and bullet pointed by occasional onscreen subtitles indicating
where we are in Gawain’s sojourn, The
Green Knight isn’t your typical adult fantasy epic. Much closer to the graphically violent and
carnal world of John Boorman’s Excalibur by
way of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah rather
than The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit films, this is the kind of
film that demands patience, an open mind and for you to be willing to suspend
your disbelief for two hours.
One of the
ways The Green Knight works so well
is due to the lush cinematographic palette by Andrew Droz Palermo who lenses
the Irish castles and countryside handsomely and distantly. Then there’s the film’s jarring atonal
soundtrack by Daniel Hart which sounds like the nightmarish lovechild of
Krzysztof Penderecki and Gyorgy Ligeti, lending a mood that’s at once heavenly
and terrifying.
Performance
wise the acting is indeed very good with the ensemble cast of characters Sir
Gawain comes into contact with including Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita
Choudhury and Sean Harris though most will recognize Dunkirk actor Barry Koeghan in an unlikely cameo as a vagrant. Mostly however, the film rests on a largely
physically taxing performance from the bearded Dev Patel who spends much of the
film either in the woods, in the water or in mountainous terrain.
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| Courtesy of A24 Films |
As daunting to watch for what the actors went
through making the trek through the countryside as Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising and just as strangely
magical as Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales,
The Green Knight might well be one of
A24’s most ambitious productions to date.
For writer-director David Lowery (currently shooting a new Disney Peter Pan film) in his second stint with
the company, The Green Knight proves
not only to be the filmmaker’s most accomplished work to date but also is more
than well worth the wait!
--Andrew Kotwicki
