Review of The Green Knight (2021) by Locnes90 — 31 Jul 2021

What I was hoping for was an Arthurian fantasy with the driving narrative focus and action of 'Gravity', the dreamlike illustrative visuals of '12 Years a Slave', and the sensory, nightmarish editing, sound, and post-production of 'Hereditary' and 'Midsommar'.

For good measure, add in a splash of the emotional humanism of Ang Lee's best work (I would totally get excited for any kind of Arthurian fantasy by Ang Lee). This is not that movie. This movie is equivalent to a series of iconic minimalist paintings tied together by intellectual explanation and hidden references or symbols that barely fit into a "narrative".

It feels as if the sound design and abstract editing are a last-ditch effort to give it any real sense of life. Even so, the score is primarily "spooky" and there are no real melodic motifs that help us feel the soul of our main character or the weight of his journey.

Unfortunately, I found this to be boring, ponderous, and a huge let-down. I thought the combination of Arthurian revisionism, surrealism, hypnotic editing and post-production (it's A24 after all) would be wonderous to behold and I could not have been more hyped.

Instead, I felt literally sick at the lack of plot momentum or clear character development. This is exactly the kind of art film that I hoped it would not be. It is so vague and overladen with "symbolism" that it ceases to be a story at all.

The ending is nihilistic and cynical to top it all off. My wife and I agreed that this felt like a film student's attempt to confuse his fellow students so that they could brag about how everyone just "isn't smart enough to get it".

Dev Patel looks very cool and the cinematography and production design will be front-runners at next year's Oscars. Hopefully, if this does well at the box office (even for an R-rated art film) it will open the door for more "surrealist fantasy" and another filmmaker will be able to make something like this, but more exciting and with greater stakes.

I watched all of the youtube videos and read all the articles explaining what the ending was meant to convey. Even after gaining a greater understanding of what I was meant to perceive, I still firmly believe that this was a huge missed opportunity to create a truly masterful work.

It frustrates me that it is being applauded by so many critics. If you were to tell me that this film just wasn't for me, or that I "don't appreciate what the movie was trying to do", I would say that this was simply a case of style over substance.

I was just as harsh on Gareth Edwards' 'Godzilla' when it came out due to an overall lack of kaiju action, but eventually, I grew to like that film more. Perhaps 'Green Knight' will also grow on me, but for now, I am in more agreement with those in my audience who were laughing and throwing their hands up at the end of this.

This movie itself seems to be on drugs, and unfortunately, it is made dumb by them.