The Green Knight

There were few sub­jects as pop­u­lar in Mid­dle Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture as knights and behead­ing, which accounts for the endur­ing suc­cess of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: a 14-cen­tu­ry chival­ric romance con­cern­ing the for­tunes of King Arthur’s young nephew and the mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure who chal­lenges him to a friend­ly Yule­tide game. Schol­ars have bick­ered over the myr­i­ad poten­tial inter­pre­ta­tions of the anony­mous poem for cen­turies, and now comes a new cin­e­mat­ic inter­pre­ta­tion from David Lowery.

It’s fit­ting source mate­r­i­al for Low­ery, whose strong body of work so far con­sists of sto­ries that are – in one sense or anoth­er – con­cerned with myths and leg­ends, all with a tinge of romance, from his strong debut Ain’t Them Bod­ies Saints to soul­ful Robert Red­ford swan­song The Old Man & the Gun. Even his for­ay into Dis­ney IP with the 2016 Pete’s Drag­on remake was a ten­der, beau­ti­ful­ly imag­i­na­tive out­ing. This is a film­mak­er who doesn’t do things by half.

The charis­mat­ic, lad­dish Gar­wain (Dev Patel) leads a charmed life in Camelot, drink­ing with friends and canoodling with his peas­ant lover Essel (Ali­cia Vikan­der). His moth­er, Mor­gan le Fay, gen­tly scolds her son for his lack of airs and graces, but when a giant, oth­er­world­ly crea­ture rid­ing a horse impos­es upon a Christ­mas feast host­ed by King Arthur and Queen Guin­e­vere (Sean Har­ris and Kate Dick­ie) it’s Gawain who steps up to the man­tel and takes on his chal­lenge: to land a blow upon The Green Knight, and in return, one year lat­er trav­el to the Green Chapel and receive an equal blow in return.

The jour­ney to seek his des­tiny becomes Gawain’s noble quest, tak­ing him across the windswept British isles where he encoun­ters all man­ner of friends and foes. Out­side the bus­tle of Camelot, a wild land awaits the hap­less young lord, and while his naivety once seemed sweet, in the world beyond the cas­tle walls it’s a threat to his survival.

Yet for all the mag­ic and mys­tery Gawain encoun­ters along the way, he still lacks direc­tion, wait­ing for an encounter – be it with the Green Knight or oth­er­wise – to turn him into the chival­rous hero he believes he is des­tined to be. At Camelot folk ask when he’ll become a knight; Gawain takes the ques­tion in his stride but seems haunt­ed by the sug­ges­tion that he may not be the man every­one around him tells him he is. As such, it’s a curi­ous­ly con­tem­po­rary sto­ry despite the medieval set­ting; one of expec­ta­tions and restraints, the desire for free­dom and the loom­ing ques­tion of whether fate is decid­ed for us or by us.

The film rests on Patel’s shoul­ders. There’s a pup­py­ish qual­i­ty to young Gawain which he cap­tures with ease, but as life – and his per­ilous jour­ney – take their toll, he becomes more stur­dy and sure of him­self. It’s a demand­ing role but Patel’s per­for­mance is effort­less, beguiled by the majesty of the world beyond his gild­ed cage. He’s human enough to fail but knight­ly enough to not give in. Oppo­site Patel, Vikan­der does a dia­bol­i­cal York­shire accent as Essel, but as The Lady she makes for a bewitch­ing co-star. As does Ralph Ine­son, don­ning impres­sive pros­thet­ics as The Green Knight him­self. He is used spar­ing­ly and this adds to the character’s gravitas.

Visu­al­ly the film is equal­ly impres­sive. It’s rare to watch a film and feel so deeply the thought that has gone into every sin­gle frame – from the choice of fab­rics that con­trast the earthy greys and greens of the land­scape to the intri­cate design of sin­gles and crowns. Else­where, Lowery’s reg­u­lar musi­cal col­lab­o­ra­tor Daniel Hart pro­vides anoth­er enchant­i­ng score, com­bin­ing choral arias with evoca­tive vio­lin arrange­ments and unnerv­ing calls which sound sim­i­lar to whale song. It’s a strange and haunt­ing sound­track to a strange and haunt­ing film.

While Low­ery could have explored the poem in a lit­tle more detail (some of the nuance and queer sub­text of The Green Knight’s iden­ti­ty are lost in this ver­sion) this is nonethe­less a bold vision. Wild at heart, this qui­et epic casts a lin­ger­ing mys­ti­cal spell, per­fect to ush­er in the forth­com­ing autumn nights.