'The Green Knight for our times: A24 new movie reviewed

The much-awaited for new A24 Green Knight movie, starring Dev Patel, opened to UK audiences just recently, after a delayed release. Apocalyptic post-war imagery, the aura of legend and stunning imagery bring to mind modern warnings of the danger of mass extinction and ecological destruction, while the mysterious presentation of both Gawain and the Green Knight challenge modern audiences to self-scrutinise their own potential naivete about the perils brought about by man’s conquest of nature across centuries of industrialisation.

The movie is based on the fourteenth-century alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a gem of medieval English literature that combines anxieties over the performance of chivalry and adherence to moral Christian values against a background of reflections on the passing of time (the backbone of the poem is the calendar year), aging and inner reflection, as opposed to the famed chivalric exploits modern audiences associate Arthurian literature with. The text, likely composed in Cheshire, for a local court, speaks of conflict between the centre (Arthur’s young court) and the border (the Green Knight’s domain), displayed in an opulence of descriptions of material culture, and competing morals presented in each. Both the poem and the movie revel in detail, and it is pleasing to see how the crux of interpretation can easily be said to be in emphasis on the senses: where the written text gives the reader a full sensorial experience, with rich textures, taste, smell and touch (with references to exchanges with Europe and the far East) tempting him/her away from spiritual introspection, the movie pulls the modern audience into enjoyment of Gawain’s sexual trysts and tantalising temptations by Bertilak (aka Green Knight)’s wife.

Interesting choices in the movie are both the aging of the protagonists and the Green Knight’s portrayal. While the fourteenth-century poem depicts Arthur as young, hot-headed, ‘boyish’ (‘childgered’), just like all his other knights, and hence in need of learning from the mature Green Knight, the movie shows where chivalry ends, bringing destruction rather than a fulfilment of ideals, with an aging Arthur and Guenevere, well past the age of prowess on the battlefield or in the bedroom, with scenes of mass destruction – human and nature alike overcome with grief and deceit.  Much of the original text and the movie centre around human desire and its repercussions, and although the original poem doesn’t expose man’s conflict with nature in quite the same way as modern audiences perceive it, human ambition and dreams of grandeur and conquest are just what brings down Arthurian chivalry, and modern society. Indeed Gawain is sexually tempted in both versions, yet in the movie the fact he is not a knight yet, and clearly not ready to become one either, enhances the moral of the quest he goes through, watching helplessly the rapid waning world of legend (the giants of lore) and saints’ lives (the novel element in the movie) while his own temptations expose his fragility. The Green Knight himself poses several problematic issues in both texts; in the original text he is human, of huge stature, extraordinarily attired in complex and fashionable clothing befitting a knight of high social standing, yet barefoot and holding a branch of holly and an axe, upsets this seemingly peaceful scene. In the movie, his stature is less important than his tree-like form, which speaks of Tolkien- esque adaptation, ancient forests being destroyed to make human dwellings, serve wars, while his challenge is even more subtle, through his wife showing Gawain is not quite ready to comprehend his mission in the world.

Gawain’s portrayal at the centre of two worlds is fabulously problematic in itself, and it is here that the movie captures the medieval concern with introspection and philosophical concerns. Nature and humanity are not in conflict as such, one might think, not openly, at least, in fourteenth-century thinking or the original poem. However, the encounter with nature speaks of the need to master the turmoil within, and Gawain/Arthur’s court have much to learn from the outside challenger, the Green Knight and his lady. The poem exposes the flaws in Arthurian chivalry, its shallow observance of Christianity, and the dangers of overweening worldly pride. Gawain’s journey through a desolate landscape, seeking to find the Green Chapel where the Green Knight is said to reside, is only a prelude to the exquisite temptations of Bertilak’s (later revealed to be the Green Knight) court and his lady. In much the same way, the movie evocatively sets the scene so that Gawain’s nightmarish foresight of future glory combines destruction and pointless fame in several short, powerful flash images. All of these features bring to the fore not just the way in which both medieval poem and modern movie encourage reflection on nature vs civilisation, but also the perennial danger of vainglory in this world, which here has dazzled Arthur’s court, and modern humanity in believing itself invincible, but led to widespread destruction of the natural world.

Publication date: 17 February 2022