{"id":714,"date":"2021-10-23T18:20:54","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T23:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/trident\/?p=714"},"modified":"2023-03-20T08:31:53","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T13:31:53","slug":"the-green-knight-film-review-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/trident\/2021\/10\/23\/the-green-knight-film-review-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Green Knight Film Review (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Green Knight\u00a0<\/em>Film Review<\/h1>\n

Part II<\/h2>\n

by Noelle Weaver<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

The middle of the film’s tone is full of eerie surrealism, and the viewer can never be sure if what they’re seeing is reality or not. The sepia-toned barren landscapes Gawain travels through offer no comfort, and everyone he encounters on the road is looking to take a piece of him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the beginning of my review of\u00a0The Green Knight<\/em>, check out the first part here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An immediate divergence from the poem, where the true sender of the Green Knight is concealed until the end\u2014 King Arthur\u2019s sister, the sorceress Morgan Le Fey\u2014 is that the film lets us know from the start who summoned the Green Knight. Gawain\u2019s own mother is the sorceress in this story, and she creates the challenge to her brother the king. This makes the story and the game no less mysterious or ambiguous; why does Arthur\u2019s sister challenge his court? And if the Green Knight intends to return the blow in a year and kill Gawain, why would she let her son go to his doom? We\u2019re left to infer that perhaps Morgana is frustrated with Arthur\u2019s lack of acceptance of his nephew Gawain, and intends to punish Arthur. Or maybe the challenge was all for Gawain himself, a chance for Le Frey\u2019s son to prove himself and push him out the door to greatness.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If this is her intent, she succeeds. Gawain becomes a legend in Camelot by beheading the Green Knight, and Arthur himself encourages Gawain to go and see his quest through to further his greatness. The contention between what a man should want and be– to be good, or great — seems to pull Gawain back and forth. He doesn\u2019t want to go out to face an opponent with a right to his head, but he also wants to be a knight and a nobleman. His mother and Arthur urge him towards honor and greatness, while Essel the prostitute wonders why goodness in a man isn\u2019t enough.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another element from the end of the book is introduced much earlier, and again by Gawain\u2019s mother; the green girdle. Before he leaves, Morgan le Fey gives her son the enchanted sash with the promise that as long as he wears it, he\u2019ll return to her again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Gawain sets out, he\u2019s loaded with the armor of a knight, and gifts from his friends and the court. A bell as a token from his lover (not a courtly handkerchief as a sign of affection from a lady), the blessed shield from the queen, the sword of the king, and the enchanted green girdle from his mother the sorceress. These gifts combine the contradictory forces of Christianity and magic that feature in the best of Camelot\u2019s stories. He leaves the city prepared and with the support of his loved ones and his people.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And then Gawain is promptly robbed blind. The first thing that happens on Gawain\u2019s quest is that he\u2019s stripped of everything that should protect him; his armor, his blessed shield with both the five pointed star of knighthood and religious icon of the Virgin Mary and Christ child, the Green Knight\u2019s axe, and even the green girdle. Everything that marks him as a knight, blessed and supported by civilization, is stripped from him, and only Gawain himself is left. When Gawain leaves the walls of Camelot, he\u2019s met with a cruel, brutal, and nonsensical world full of magic and misery. He\u2019s immediately robbed and stripped of everything he brought, from his horse to the green sash his mother promises will protect him. This is a world of wild chaos, the world of the Green Knight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Stained glass window of St. Winifred
Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Later on, in the house of St. Winifred, he regains one thing he left Camelot with; the Green Knight\u2019s axe. Like Christ carrying his cross to Golgotha, Gawain spends the rest of his difficult journey carrying the weapon that will kill him when he reaches the Green Chapel. Another familiar religious image seems to be that of figures like Mary Magdalene and Veronica cleaning Jesus and wiping his face; King Arthur wipes mud off of Gawain\u2019s face, and other characters echo the tender gesture of touching Gawain\u2019s face, most poignantly at the end of the film. Gawain is far from a virtuous man, but like Jesus, he\u2019s facing the road to his death, and he may be an unlikely king too as we see later on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What\u2019s more is that whether Gawain wants to be a good man or a great one, he struggles to be either as he stumbles through his journey to survive. Before he leaves, he\u2019s cold to Essel, denying that he\u2019ll have a place for her in his life when he becomes a lord. He ignores the children chasing after his horse from Camelot, and he doesn\u2019t want to pay the boy who has lost his family in a battle in exchange for giving Gawain directions. When he encounters the ghost of St. Winifred, he wants something in exchange for helping her. At every chance to show kindness and mercy, Gawain fails. What he is good at is self preservation. The only companion he accepts is a fox, who he initially tries to shoo away.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These episodes, like Gawain being robbed, encountering the ghost of St. Winifred, seeing giants, and his loyal fox companion are absent from the original story. Despite this artistic license being taken, these encounters further reflect themes from the poem; the nature of chivalry, virtues, a harsh and wild world, and exchange. What\u2019s more is each scene, announced by illuminated letters, is another test of Gawain\u2019s character. The whole journey is a continuation of the challenge of the Green Knight\u2019s game, a test of the knight who accepts it, just as it is in the story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo by Cederic Vandenberghe on Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The penultimate chapter begins when Gawain meets the Lord Bertilak and the Lady in the mysterious country castle, and is much more familiar to readers of the original. When Gawain is exhausted and starving from his brutal journey a few days before Christmas, he stumbles upon a castle in the middle of nowhere, as if it\u2019s awaiting him. There are only three people living there in this version; the lord, the lady, and an eerie blind folded old woman. The hunt, the game of exchange between the Lord, and the temptation of the Lady play out in a bleak fashion as Gawain is offered friendship and further challenges at once.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This Lady is played by the same actress as Essel, Gawain\u2019s love from Camelot, and not for the first time we have to question if how Gawain is perceiving events is reality. The Lady receives much more characterization than in the original; she\u2019s an avid reader, and she copies books in her library, a common practice in the time before printing presses. She\u2019s also an artist, and paints an eerie upside down portrait of Gawain. In yet another exchange, the Lady takes Essel\u2019s token, the bell, from Gawain before she paints him, seeming to take a part of himself too. These gifts help serve to make more sense of the game of exchange the Lord makes to Gawain; in the original, Gawain only receives courtly kisses, while in the film he actually is receiving more tangible gifts as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The three nobles share an evening together, under the observation of the silent old woman, and have an fascinating conversation about Gawain\u2019s quest for greatness, and the nature of the Green Knight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is what you want most in life?\u201d the Lord questions Gawain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo be a knight?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, honor. You are not very good with questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gawain claims, \u201cIt is part of the life I want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is all it takes for that part to be had? You\u2019ll do this one thing, you return home, a changed man, an honorable man? Just like that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I wish I could see the new you. But perhaps we will miss our old friend, and our fun, and our games.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This single exchange encapsulates the whole point of the movie, and arguably of every single hero\u2019s journey through time. The young hero is inexperienced and lacking in something, whether it\u2019s maturity, wisdom, or wealth, goes on a quest and encounters hardship and overcomes obstacles, defeats the villain, and returns home a changed man. The Gawain in the original story learns that he can\u2019t be perfect, but he\u2019s no worse a man for it. This Gawain blindly seeks honor, and hopes that meeting the Green Knight will somehow transform him into a legendary and worthy knight just as all heroes are by their quests. But we\u2019ve seen how Gawain has refused to grow throughout, and even in this conversation he\u2019s clearly unsure of what he wants. Despite his travels, Gawain is mostly unchanged from how he began the story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This film isn’t as overtly a horror movie as\u00a0A24<\/em>‘s other films like\u00a0Midsommar\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Hereditary<\/em>, but it keeps you on the edge of your seat as Gawain plunges through Camelot and it’s world as we’ve never seen it before. Every encounter is full of surrealism and uncanny moments, leaving the audience wondering what really is magic, and what is Gawain’s mind playing tricks on him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The last haunting question\u00a0The Green Knight\u00a0<\/em>has left me with for this part of the review is this; is\u00a0The Green Knight\u00a0<\/em>the perfect Halloween movie, or the perfect Christmas movie?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stay tuned for the final part of\u00a0The Green Knight<\/em> review to look at the shocking conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Green Knight\u00a0Film Review Part II by Noelle Weaver   The middle of the film’s tone is full of eerie surrealism, and the viewer can never be sure if what they’re seeing is reality or not. The sepia-toned barren landscapes Gawain travels through offer no comfort, and everyone he encounters on the road is looking… <\/p>\n

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