KNIGHT FEVER (THE GREEN KNIGHT)

 

Is it possible to admire a film but not really love it?

Of course. Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon' is one such film for me.

The director's elegant 1975 adaptation of William Thackeray's tale of a charming Irish rogue climbing the social ladder of Britain's 18th Century aristocracy still looks fantastic to this day.

A lot of that is down to its Academy Award winning cinematography, costume design and art and set direction from John Alcott, Milena Canonero, Ulla-Britt Soderlund, Ken Adam Roy Walker and Vernon Dixon.

It also features a great Oscar winning score by Leonard Rosenman featuring The Chieftains and an amusing Leonard Rossiter performance as an Army captain.

However the story leaves me cold.

Among the other films that inspired my admiration but failed to secure my love include David Fincher's 'Mank' or Martin Scorsese's 'Kundun' 

And then there's Terrence Malick's 'Tree of Life'.

Say hello to a new addition to that category, David Lowery's 'The Green Knight'.

It is a film that is so vibrant visually, it would normally be regarded as a shoo-in for a hatful of technical Oscars next year, were it not for the fact that we have yet to see Denis Villeneuve's 'Dune,' Kenneth Branagh's 'Belfast,' Joel Coen's 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' and Wes Anderson's 'The French Dispatch'.

Right from the off, Lowery's retelling of a 14th Century Middle English poem 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' conjures up images that look like they could be hung in an art gallery.

Dev Patel's Sir Gawain sits perched on a throne - a Christ like figure, his head suddenly bursting into flames.

Cut to a horse, goose, ducks and a goat outside a stable while a man is slumped by its door.

A mist drifts across the screen but the man does not move.

He could be asleep. He could be comatose with drink. He might even be dead. 

We're not sure.

The man also doesn't stir as the goose pecks the goat.

There's no reaction from him either as a man and woman enter the screen and untether the horse.

Andrew Droz Palermo's camera pulls  slowly back to reveal we are spying this scene through a window.

Water drips on the stone in time to a percussive beat and eventually the camera reveals Patel's Gawain deep in a sleep until he is rudely awakened with a bucket of water in the brothel he has spent the night with Alicia Vikander's Essel.

It's Christmas morning and Essel announces she's off to Mass.

Gawain follows her, helping Essel up on the back of his horse.

Soon he is preparing to join Sean Harris' sickly looking King Arthur and Kate Dickie's Queen Guinevere at a Christmas feast in Camelot while his mother, Sarita Choudhury's Morgan le Fay chides him for being missing all night.

As he heads off to Camelot, Morgan announces she is not attending.

At the feast, King Arthur beckons Gawain to sit beside him and Queen Guinevere.

However he is loathe to do so because he doesn't feel worthy.

With the King keen to get to know his nephew better, he urges him to tell them a story but Gawain struggles as he looks at the legendary Knights gathered around the banquet table.

This prompts Guinevere to encourage Gawain to create his own legend.

The feast is interrupted, however, by a giant figure on horseback who bursts into the hall and lays down a challenge.

Ralph Ineson's Green Knight tells the guests that any knight who lands a blow on him will receive his green axe - only if he travels to a Green Chapel the following Christmas to receive a similar blow.

Gawain volunteers and is shocked when the Green Knight does not engage him in combat, putting his axe on the floor.

He chops the knight's head off nevertheless, only for the decapitated corpse to rise up, pick up its head and leave on horseback, laughing manically in the expectation that he will see Gawain in a year's time.

One year on, Gawain heads off on an epic trek to meet his fate.

Along the way, he encounters Barry Keoghan's shifty scavenger on a battlefield who points him in the direction of a stream that will lead him to the Green Chapel.

During an increasingly treacherous and haunting journey, he also comes across Erin Kellyman's Winifred, a young woman who is not all she seems.

Joel Edgerton's Lord plays host to an exhausted Gawain in his castle, telling him that his acceptance of the Green Knight's challenge has made him famous.

During his stay, Gawain has to deal with the sexual advances of The Lady of the castle, also played by Vikander.

When he eventually makes it to the Green Chapel, will Gawain survive the swinging of the Green Knight's axe?

Working from his own screenplay, Lowery tackles myth and reality, the supernatural and nature, Christian morality and pagan belief, mortality and the passage of time.

With the help of Droz Palermo and also Malgosia Turzanska's stunning costumes, he conjures up one of the most visually striking films of the past decade - making great use of its Irish locations in Cahir Castle, Co Tipperary and Charleville Castle in Tullamore, Co Offaly as well as Ardmore Studios.

There's a magnetic central performance from Dev Patel as Gawain, complemented by some fine supporting performances from Ineson, Keoghan, Vikander, Edgerton, Harris, Dickie, Kellyman and Choudhury.

So why does Lowery's epic leave me unmoved?

'The Green Knight' is a perplexing tale in much the same way Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' undoubtedly was.

Everything about it is meticulously created. 

Every shot is so painstakingly ornate, you feel you are not drinking it all in with your senses on your first viewing.

Every colour choice, each camera angle and move has been choreographed to the Nth degree.

It is so artfully constructed, you suspect Lowery wants you to ponder over what you have just seen as soon as one scene has ended and has moved onto the next.

You also feel like you need an Arthurian Legend study aid by your side to pick up every reference.

As a result, 'The Green Knight' feels exhausting.

It's too much of a chore to watch and it just doesn't grab the heart.

Lowery is so focused on playing with the head, he loses sight on the film's ability to engage the soul.

So while the surreal nature of Sir Gawain's trek is a clear nod to Francis Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now,' Lowery also spends his time paying his dues to John Boorman's Arthurian tale 'Excalibur,' Ron Howard's 'Willow,' Franco Zefirrelli's 'Brother Son, Sister Moon,' Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon' and Martin Scorsese's 'Silence'.

That's all well and good but you cannot help but wish there was a lot more to it.

Maybe like 'Tenet,' 'The Green Knight' is a film that is so rich in detail it demands repeat viewings.

But as any cook will tell you when a meal is too rich, when its sauce is too heavy that's when it stops being enjoyable.

If truth be told, the thought of wading through 'Tenet' again looking for clues has not exactly made me rush back to watch it a second time.

And the same is undoubtedly true for 'The Green Knight'.

Call me lazy, if you will, but I prefer films that give me an instant hit.

And while the final 15-20 minutes of Lowery's film are unquestionably powerful, a lot of what precedes just drags.

Lowery reportedly spent a year trying to get the final edit right and it tells.

For while 'The Green Knight' is undoubtedly a labour of love and gorgeous to look at, it is humourless, it is frustrating and I'm afraid it is occasionally boring.

'Game of Thrones,' it ain't.

In fact, it is too like 'Barry Lyndon'.

('The Green Knight' received a limited release in UK and Irish cinemas and a simultaneous release on Amazon Prime on September 24, 2021)