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The Green Knight


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  • 2 months later...

I saw the film last night. It actually angered my girlfriend and now I don’t think she trusts my movie judgment. It’s definitely not a film for everyone. I saw the last star wars movie and nobody seemed to walk out for more than a restroom break, but this one actually had half of the theater walk out before the half way point and by the end only six of us were left from a half crowded room. Some left so late that I don’t think they’ll get their money back, but if they have the same attitude as my girlfriend they’re probably just happy to go home.

 It’s a very visual movie with some very interesting scenery and some very strange things to watch for. There’s a lot going on but not a lot happening and I think overall it works as a fable, but not so much as a movie that anyone needs to spend money on. I think there’s going to be some very different opinions from anyone who does go and watch it though. I don’t think it’s one that I ever need to watch again 

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Saw it Friday night, and I've been incubating my thoughts the whole weekend.

I think it was foolhardy of people, the majority of my theater included, to think this was somehow going to be a typical medieval fantasy epic. Nothing about any of the trailers suggested it would be anything like that, and yet people in my theater could not walk out come the credits fast enough shaking their head at, I suppose, a sense of being duped.

Spoiler

That said, I'm also not sure if the movie knew what it wanted to be. Is it a straight-forward retelling of The Green Knight? Is it a deconstruction? Is it a "historically accurate" depiction? You'll find all three true to varying extents... and to its credit, the movie balances all of those elements beautifully for the vast, VAST majority of its runtime. It only really falters at the end, when its inability to firmly declare what it is catches up to it, and you're left with an overextended montage sequence followed by an unfulfilling cliffhanger of an ending. As a friend of mine put it, "I think you should end the last sentence in your essay with a period instead of an ellipsis," Which isn't to say that cliffhangers are bad in and of themselves, but that here, well, the cliffhanger is an ellipsis where it demanded a period.

THAT said, the movie is still beautiful, and I love its lack of sanitation of early Anglo-Saxon Christianity. The film is potent with earthy imagery, and the old magic that still ruled the English-speaking world in that day. Despite my misgivings, I had an enjoyable time watching it. Part of me also feel like maybe I missed something, that perhaps there was a through-line in the last third of the film that I simply lost track of in the midst of all its dreamlike ephemera.

 

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Like I said, it’s gonna bring different reactions from different people and it’s not just love or hate, but it also seems like anywhere in between as well. I think people should see it to judge for themselves, but probably shouldn’t pay to see it

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