Written and Directed by David Lowery
Starring Dev Patel, Sarita Chouhury, Alcia Vikander, Sean Harris
Rated R for violence, some sexuality and graphic nudity
Runtime: 2 hours, 5 minutes
In theaters July 30

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring

Being out in nature is the closest I get to meditation. It is difficult, if not impossible, for me to sit in my house–or anyplace resembling civilization–and truly allow myself to be alone with my thoughts. Mindfulness is fleeting. My brain excels at occupying itself, flying through thoughts, worries, and anxieties at a speed that is often faster than I can feel them. It’s something I ought to work on, but until then I have the trees. Walking through a forest, lit by indirect sunlight, a chilly mist in the air, the only sounds being birds and my own footfalls, it helps me find peace. I am able to appreciate the smaller moments: the look of a particular tree, or the discovery of mushrooms. Away from home, I think less about all of the things I need to attend to, the relationships I need to maintain, but I feel them more. I rarely take out my phone, except to try to snap some pictures so that I can remember how I felt that day.

Every physical journey is also a metaphysical one. When hiking, even if I am not alone, time expands, slows down. Everything in life seems to be moving faster and faster the older I get. So many things require effort so that they do not slide toward entropy.  I am “busy” all the time. I could fill every waking hour and never run out of things to do. When you’re young, a season lasts forever. A year stretches out before you, and Christmas seems so far away. As an adult, as in David Lowrey’s The Green Knight, a year can often feel like a moment. A promise made a year ago in good intent becomes an obligation to dread. When Gawain (Dev Patel) beheads the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) in a Christmas game, it is the rush of buying concert tickets or sending party invitations. When the promise to have the Knight return the blow a year later comes around, it’s like forcing yourself to leave the house for a weeknight concert, it’s cleaning your bathroom hoping the smell of bleach dissipates before your guests arrive. That time between the excitement and the commitment coming due is no time at all. 

In adapting the 14th century poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Lowrey has taken a gardener’s approach. While keeping the Arthurian milieu intact, he has pruned some branches of the story, while letting others run wild. The largest branch trimmed is the Christianity that is woven throughout the original text. While Gawain’s shield, painted with the image of the Virgin Mary appears, it doesn’t play a prominent role in the narrative. Guinevere (Kate Dickie) reminds Gawain of the five wounds of Christ, the five joys of Mary, but as Camelot recedes into the distance, these concepts also fade, though Gawain’s nature is still being challenged. This choice also shapes the visual interpretation of the story’s climactic Green Chapel as a former church, no longer serving as one but as a respite of the magical challenger. Lowrey zeroes in on the cycle of life, the passing of time, and the fear of death present throughout the story and elevates them as more relevant to our experience than chivalry. 

Lowery’s interpretation of the poem is most different from the source in its purpose. While the original, like so many other myths, offered moral guidance to its audience, Lowery instead raises questions. The film wrestles with every step of this journey, emphasizing Gawain’s humanity over his humility. 

My favorite aspect of the story as written is the theme of forgiveness. Part of what makes Gawain so relatable is that he does falter, and is harder on himself than those around him, who embrace him and forgive his mistakes. The Green Knight never quite gets there, but instead suggests we ought to make choices we are proud of no matter the cost. In an age where those with privilege repeatedly fail to do anything besides protect the status quo, these are some of the hardest choices to make. Being a good man today is just as difficult as it ever has been, and as a cis-het white man, it means caring about more than just my own actions. For me, acting with honor is not about confronting some external evil, but speaking truth to power. For Gawain, it is easier to ride off into the wilderness than it would be to confront another man, even if it means death. I often feel the same, and the shame that follows.

Despite it being a winter tale, the closer Gawain gets to the Green Chapel, the more green there is around him. By the time he arrives at the Chapel, The Green–loosely echoing a concept Alan Moore and Steve Bissette Introduced to Swamp Thing–is shown to be a strong and all-encompassing power. The Green represents life. Not just the verdant, life-giving variety that we immediately think of, but permanent change. Not just seedlings sprouting from the earth, but the force which erases our footprints from the grass and climbing ivy that turns our buildings into ruins. The imagery of the Green evoked in the film is equally likely to sustain humans as it is to disappear any trace of us. Skulls and skeletons recur as well to represent this idea. Bodies placed in nature decay into the natural world, while the skeleton hanging in a cage is forever separated from that destiny. “Is this all there is?” Gawain asks the Green Knight. What of the future? What of the life not lived? Are we just “busy” until we are entombed in the earth? Not only are we not ready to die, but we are often not ready to change. We will change no matter what, but will we change into wistful bitter elders consumed with loss? Or will we try to keep pace with the world around us and embrace the moment? 

Lowrey luxuriates in growing out the world around his folktale, turning the romantic poem into a series of episodes. He expands a few lines in the original in order to convey the literal and mental distance Gawain is covering in his journey. In these moments, Lowery evokes everything from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Where the Wild Things Are to Prometheus. Even a country that seems as familiar as Britain can offer locations that look positively alien, connecting Gawain’s traversal to the concept of The Green. One of the main contrasts in the poem is between ‘Christian civilization’ and ‘pagan nature,’ a conflict between order and chaos. Lowery emphasizes the chaos, giving us more of Gawain’s sheltered life before he heads out into the chaos. That sense of peace one finds in the wood can turn to struggle and loneliness as soon as you twist your ankle. Gawain’s adventures strip him down to the core, and make him even more vulnerable to the temptations he encounters. 

The carefully crafted visuals push these ideas forward, with Lowrey using the camera to constantly give a sense of space.  When out in the wilds of Britain, the camera is often at a distance, framing Dev Patel as a smallish figure moving through the frame that is otherwise filled with trees and rocks. But when focusing on the relationships between Gawain and the other characters he meets, Lowery deploys intense close-ups, and the tension–sexual and otherwise–is palpable. The desire to give into those urges–to give up fighting against the march of time and live for the moment no matter the consequences–is all captured in the soft lighting, closeups, and the touching of hands on faces. What keeps us restrained? Fear. Of being ostracized, of being disliked, of being judged. We act this way because we are animals who have convinced ourselves we stand apart from nature. However, our base instincts are never as close to the surface as when a meeting with a stranger turns suddenly intimate. How are we to act when there is no one else around? What are the rules of this game? The Green Knight speaks to the body as well as the mind, shrouding our physical wants in its cool mists and verdant forests.