The Green Knight (2021)

directed by David Lowery

Canada, Ireland, UK, USA

130 minutes

4.5 stars out of 5

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I wasn't sure if I was going to review this because there's already so much that's been said about it and I doubt I have anything intelligent to contribute, but after putting it at the top of my "best of the year" list, I wanted to at least get some thoughts down about it. So consider this less of a critical review and more of me talking about how I personally responded to the film.

The translation I read of the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight poem was not fantastic - an extremely stodgy rendition that felt like it had been given a bag with a very limited number of words in it to choose from, and specific instructions never to become overly emotional or upsetting - but it highlighted something that, I think, made me approach this film in a different way. Prehistoric Britain is a personal fascination of mine and something that I'm so much of a stickler for in media that it ruins my enjoyment of anything set in the era, and I was almost edging on getting my enjoyment ruined several times during The Green Knight because of all of its anachronisms, but then I thought about that garbage translation I read and I realized that the Sir Gawain poem itself was not being faithful to the truth of ancient Britain, but creating a motif that would have been recognizable to the people of its day. The Green Knight does not attempt to re-create a specific time and place so much as it uses those themes as a palette with which to create something recognizably "old", but in the process it creates something out-of-time. It's not important that we believe 100% what we're seeing is pinned to a specific era. The feeling just has to be there enough for us to respond to it.

There is a scene that I particularly liked in which Sir Gawain essentially has his photograph taken by the lady of the castle he comes across in the wood. This is a great example of trading perfect historical accuracy for tone, and I felt that using anachronistic technology also said something about the mystery and inaccessibility of the past. To imagine that the technology to take a photograph might have existed in the time of Arthurian legend risks bringing us into bunko Ancient Aliens territory, but as long as it remains just an idea and we recognize that we have no actual evidence to prove that it could have happened, it's such an interesting concept that I'm kind of still struck by it. There's something about the thought of people in such a far-flung time having the ability to permanently capture images without the use of painting, and how that would have impacted the entire world, that resonated with me.

In its context, the photograph plays an important role to the story as well. Gawain is captured in it not yet having reached the end of his journey. The first time we see it, he's a troubled man reckoning with his place in the world around him having been shifted and smudged to incomprehensibility. The second and last time we see the portrait, it's hanging behind him while he is on the throne during the vision where he sees himself becoming king. While he's been thrust into a role of power and fulfilled an expectation that others had of him and that he, possibly, had for himself at the start of his journey, the difference between the morally conflicted man on the throne and the confused, searching knight in the photograph is only the addition of a crown.

One of the most interesting things that was present in the film and not in the poem is that there seemed to be this confederacy of women throughout the entire thing, who were driving the entire thing, and that was never explained or even really shown in full but only hinted at. Gawain's mother is rumored to be a witch and is shown performing some kind of ritualistic magic multiple times, magic that parallels and perhaps even invites the Green Knight's challenge to Arthur's court. The magic she performs also mirrors King Arthur's own demise, possibly as part of a plan to get her son on the throne. Even in the far reaches of his journey, when Gawain comes across the castle, there's an old woman present who is blindfolded in the same manner as his mother during her rituals, suggesting that his mother's method of divination or spell-casting is not specific to her and her peers but scattered, known by many women across the land. The little girl in the post-credits scene who finds Gawain's crown also hints at an inheritance of power by girls and women. The lady of the castle, the one who takes the photograph, is learned and certainly seems to have some knowledge that neither Gawain (nor her fairly inconsequential husband) are privy to. And despite Guinevere's otherwise small role, when the Green Knight enters the king's court, it is her who delivers his message, not the Knight himself, which seemed to me to further prove that there was some connection between the Green Knight and Gawain's mother's circle of women. I would argue that girls and women are at the heart of this whole movie, influencing everything that happens, though it may not be apparent at first glance.

The central message of the story has also been changed to reflect more of the storytelling norms of our modern era as opposed to the structure of the original poem. At the time, the tale would have been told to audiences not as a story about a single man but as more of a moral fable intended to teach them something about how to be. These kinds of tales with morals still exist today, of course, and are now often blended with stories about an individual person's journey, but The Green Knight as a film is far more focused on Gawain as a single, specific man than stories of its time typically were. I am going to link to a Reddit comment that explains very eloquently how Gawain goes through five separate encounters that force him to face the five values of chivalry, because this person's analysis of the film in contrast to the original poem is very good and opened my eyes to a couple of things I had missed out on. As chivalry is really not something people follow to the letter anymore, at least not in the sense that it was followed during the Gawain poet's time, these five trials are used as moral building-blocks for Gawain as an individual instead of a lesson to to the audience about how to act. To transpose something originally written with a completely different aim into a format that modern audiences are familiar with and still not lose any of the feeling and symbolism shows that David Lowery has significant talent.