Destiny and death walk hand in hand.
Honour is a strangely relative concept and some people live by such a strict and traditionalist version of it that they truly believe one action will turn the tide on their standing and elevate them to respectfulness. These people are compelled by the need to propel themselves upwards in society and live up to not just the expectations that everyone hold of them, but their own astronomical ones too. They’ll wear their mortality on a sleeve and throw caution to the wind in search of an arbitrary amorphousness which is like catching smoke. Better to just be a vagrant, revel in scorn and sustain yourself with filth and obscenity. It’s a much easier life and you’re not disappointing anyone if everyone around you is but a pallid face which looks right past you. Filth is a camouflage in a world equally sordid.
I can feel the wheels of this thing veering in an unwanted direction again so I’ll try to steer it back onto the road before we end up in the muddy backwaters of my cynicism.
Every day is a day off for me now because I am no longer under the oppressive thumb of a grinding job. I took what remained of my sanity and walked out of there, why? So, I could lay here drinking vast quantities of tea, watching films and writing. I truly fulfilling life… for the moment. If my routine begins to feel like it’s on an endless groundhog loop then I’ll just find another job. It’s London after all baby. Sweating Jesus! I’ve lost the thread again. Lord how long will it take me to actually get to the point? I feel like I’ve betrayed the title of this review, scared all the prospective readers away who came here to read a penny or two of mine on this film. While the “F” word is being flung around I should use this as an opportunity to transport myself back onto my path. So, on a grey and humid Saturday after cleaning my flat, I watched The Green Knight (2021) and it kept me wide awake. It carries a tone so bleak and unsettling, with undercurrents of death so pervading that it feels like as ubiquitous as the blood that keeps us alive. No one can sleep through such an affair, unless you’re really running on fumes. Bookended by what feels like the stab of a curse, everything that takes place in between the first and last utterance of this malediction is a microcosm of the journey which leads us from the first breath to the last. This tale of a man seeking his honour because it’s expected of him follows the trials of Sir Gawain, nephew to King Arthur, as he’s approached by a Green Knight made of tree in a challenge. If Gawain can land a blow on him then a year from now, he will be bound to seek out the Green Knight and then will be returned the same strike he deals the tree. However, a rash and careless move resigns Gawain to his death. A year passes and he is now expected to go seek the Green Knight and fulfil his destiny which he invited in a year ago. The lines of honour become extremely blurry for him along the way as he realises the futility of his actions and emptiness of the honour he’s chasing. His whole quest is a test to see how close he can be driven to giving up on his destiny and whether he’ll continue or not. His courage is a double-edged sword because it’s fulfilling his desire but at the cost of his life.
His path is carved out for him in bark and he flows down it like blood in an incision. Set in the old English country, that ever-present pall of death and fantasy create something that’s beyond magical realism. A magical reality. Those otherworldly forces have a part to play in every aspect of this film but where it shines the most ardently is the cinematography which kept me spellbound to its effect. Amidst the pallid greys and blacks come these frequent moments of stark colour as if the very air has been tinged with the hues of Gawain’s emotions and natures wrath. His yellow cloak stands out from that ashy colour palette, losing its vibrancy along his journey, perhaps some symbolism on his tenuous grasp upon his hope for honour, especially losing colour when he returns back home. The manner in which the landscape is shot gives it a very prophetic nature, portent coming from every twig and leaf laying idly on the ground. Wide angle lenses distort the trees to spectral heights as if reaching towards the skies and twisting outwards like strands of hair. Barren open fields isolate him with overbearing oppression and cut him out of civilisation, almost internalising his quest. Eyes of the trees. The camera follows him around on his path like a pair of disembodied eyes everywhere. He’s being watched by the very thing that makes the conclusion of his quest. Smooth and meditative camera movement frames him uncertainly, without power or influence over his surroundings. He’s far out of his depths and that becomes clear from the moment he strikes that decisive blow upon the Green Knight a year earlier.
Black magic seeps into every chord and tune making up the soundtrack, these ancient English rural chants and heavenly choral pieces that not just accompany the forces that beset Gawain, forces parsecs beyond his ken, but give them the dramatic presence that matches their height and appearance visually.
Then comes the costume and set design which is handled with such care and diligence in heaving that bleak period out of the depths of history and onto screen. The commoners wear their dirty rags and mud-stained clothes but the knights and knights are barely better. Their crowns worn and rusted almost. No satin or silk flows from their shoulders, their robes just about cover them in the dignity their rank accords them. Those crowns with the halos on a tilt at the back are truly mesmerising and make for such brilliant framing devices.
Bringing Gawain to life is Dev Patel, who does such a marvellous job at breathing life into his character that it almost seems like he’s carried a piece of him inside this whole time and has now emancipated it through this performance. He’s a joy to watch and his actions and decisions are carried out with a half determination which symbolises his internal conflict of honour over life and vice versa. This is one of those performances which elevates an actors reputations and Dev Patel truly deserves all the praise that’s come to him.
There’s so much to enjoy and revel about in this film, especially considering that David Lowery’s last offering, A Ghost Story (2017) was, to put it mildly, such stupendous garbage. But this film makes me want to more than forget that A Ghost Story ever happened and I think he’s more than atoned for his past sins. So keeping that in mind, watch this film and lets all give David Lowery a break and hope he doesn’t blow it with the next one.
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