Review of The Green Knight (2021) by Dembrewski — 02 Aug 2021

I have not read the source material and have only seen this once. So take this review as an initial reaction to the movie on its own merits.

First the positives, the film was a gorgeous piece of imagery with some excellent music and sound design that really conveyed the mood at any given moment. The final flash forward sequence of him aging was a great piece of story telling that required absolutely no dialogue and yet you knew what was happening and what the characters were feeling. Green knight character design was fantastic.

Now the confusing:

There were so many things in this movie that were introduced and then produced no pay off. They felt random and unmotivated and as far as I can tell had no impact on the story.

-the fire at the beginning.

-the giants in the valley (gotta get that boob shot in somehow I guess).

-the fox.

-the thief stealing the axe.

-the blind folded woman.

-the warning from the severed head stating "the green knight is someone you know" even though we had not met the lord at the castle yet.

All of these things and more were put in the film intentionally and yet seemed to be pointless additions.

Disconnected:

The flow of this film felt hindered by a lack of connection between scenes or motivation leading from one scene to the next. Now he's wandering and he finds mushrooms, now he starts seeing things, now it's day again and he's wandering, and now there are giants...just because, and now the giants are gone, and now he's wandering upside down some more. Beautiful imagery that feels hollow.

Clarity:

By the end of the film you're supposed to realize the fox (in its one piece of dialogue) has the voice of his mother, and the green knight has the voice of the lord from the castle. I found this out only once I looked up more info after finishing the movie, during the film it was not clear, I think mainly because of the sound design distorting the voices enough to keep me from placing them. Also, I did not recognize that the brothel girl and the lords wife were the same person, but I think that's more due to me being the type of person that would be fooled by Clark Kent's glasses.

Overall, my initial reaction was one of disappointment. In another viewing I may enjoy this more, but the marketing had me expecting a dark fantastical epic about the journey and growth of a young knight on a quest. Instead I think they should've marketed this as the abstract fever dream that it was, and I think in that situation my disappointment would be lesser.