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Obviously, this contains massive spoilers. If you are going to this movie to see Dev Patel, I don’t think it’s worth it. He does a fine job with what he is given, but he is given garbage, and there’s only so much you can do with that.
For some background, I studied English lit and have an MA in it. I took a few British Lit/medieval lit courses, and I teach a unit on medieval romance in my sophomore class, so I have a decent grasp of the conventions of a medieval romance and a solid understanding of the code of chivalry. I don’t know if this made it worse for me as a viewer of this film or not, but it definitely colors my review. Said review isn’t particularly coherent because it’s been a long time since I did a proper textual analysis, but from a gut reaction standpoint, I found this film to be tedious, plodding, way too dark (as in lighting) and wholly unsatisfying. The darkness thing is something that has really started bugging me about films and shows in the last few years. Like I get wanting to create a gritty atmosphere, but film is a VISUAL medium, and if I can’t actually see clearly what’s happening on the screen for the majority of the film, it’s a problem. It’s lazy filmmaking, IMO.
Now to talk about the story.
( Read more... )
If you do decide to see this movie, I’d love to know your thoughts.
Edit: And another thing! 😆
Dearest Manka sent me a link to an interview with the filmmaker, and it helps give some context to the artistic choices, but the film as a whole still doesn’t work for me, and here’s why (without spoilers). The filmmaker was doing some different Things, and that’s fine. I love interpretations. BUT! If you’re going to take a well-known, centuries old source text, with easily recognizable tropes, and your interpretation is in canon setting and keeps a lot of canon (not a spoiler because the source text is like seven hundred years old!), then you need to be really clear about the changes you are making and let the audience really see those choices (both figuratively and literally in this case) or else it looks like you didn’t really know what you wanted to get by the end of the story. And even if you have an ending that is meant to be ambiguous, there are still only so many ways a story can logically end within the world you’ve set up in the film. You don’t need to spoon-feed your audience, but you do need to make sure your story is structurally sound, and The Green Knight is not structurally sound. My best friend Erin put it like this — the filmmaker was trying to do a lot of things and ended up not truly accomplishing any. Except making Dev Patel look amazing! They really did that. And Patel’s acting was darn good.
For some background, I studied English lit and have an MA in it. I took a few British Lit/medieval lit courses, and I teach a unit on medieval romance in my sophomore class, so I have a decent grasp of the conventions of a medieval romance and a solid understanding of the code of chivalry. I don’t know if this made it worse for me as a viewer of this film or not, but it definitely colors my review. Said review isn’t particularly coherent because it’s been a long time since I did a proper textual analysis, but from a gut reaction standpoint, I found this film to be tedious, plodding, way too dark (as in lighting) and wholly unsatisfying. The darkness thing is something that has really started bugging me about films and shows in the last few years. Like I get wanting to create a gritty atmosphere, but film is a VISUAL medium, and if I can’t actually see clearly what’s happening on the screen for the majority of the film, it’s a problem. It’s lazy filmmaking, IMO.
Now to talk about the story.
( Read more... )
If you do decide to see this movie, I’d love to know your thoughts.
Edit: And another thing! 😆
Dearest Manka sent me a link to an interview with the filmmaker, and it helps give some context to the artistic choices, but the film as a whole still doesn’t work for me, and here’s why (without spoilers). The filmmaker was doing some different Things, and that’s fine. I love interpretations. BUT! If you’re going to take a well-known, centuries old source text, with easily recognizable tropes, and your interpretation is in canon setting and keeps a lot of canon (not a spoiler because the source text is like seven hundred years old!), then you need to be really clear about the changes you are making and let the audience really see those choices (both figuratively and literally in this case) or else it looks like you didn’t really know what you wanted to get by the end of the story. And even if you have an ending that is meant to be ambiguous, there are still only so many ways a story can logically end within the world you’ve set up in the film. You don’t need to spoon-feed your audience, but you do need to make sure your story is structurally sound, and The Green Knight is not structurally sound. My best friend Erin put it like this — the filmmaker was trying to do a lot of things and ended up not truly accomplishing any. Except making Dev Patel look amazing! They really did that. And Patel’s acting was darn good.
