The Green Knight

[Ivan Drago]

Man, I just saw this again and I just don't love it as much as the Twittersphere. I thought it meandered to and from its ideas a lot to have anything poignant to say about existence, masculinity or mortality (until the end, that is), and it doesn't offer any room for viewers to meditate about their own mortality along with Gawain for such a slow movie. Plus, some of the imagery, while powerful, felt redundant more often than not. I'm sorry, but I don't need to see Gawain walking on the ground in a shot that puts him upside down on the top of the frame and the sky on the bottom to know his perception of bravery and knighthood is skewed.

That said, the film is well-shot, well-scored and Dev Patel is phenomenal in a visually-driven performance. Plus, Lowery's clever sense of humor shines through sporadically with an occasional one-liner and the film's chapter structure. And what they did to sum up all of the film's ideas in its climax was perfectly written, performed and directed. I didn't dislike the film, don't get me wrong. Some of the storytelling just felt too artsy for its own good in my opinion, and that's a paradox coming from me.

Maybe I need to stop drinking the Bela Tarr Kool-Aid.