The Green Knight a film review

i was really struck when this film was withdrawn from uk cinemas and am still looking for a place where i can see it on a large screen, hopefully we will all be able to at some point. i am not sure whether this film will be for everyone as it leans very much on artistry and drama and character and has limited action which is what many people look for in their entertainment; the green knight is looking for something much deeper and longer lasting, and i think that it is a film which will endure. it feels distinctly different from excalibur, perhaps the most obvious point of comparison. although there are some signs of combat, unlike excalibur the combat is very much in the background. dev patel does a great job providing sir gawain with layers of development, making him believable and watchable even though he is not obviously likeable; gawain is highly flawed in many ways and there is every suggestion that his mission is misguided or even a failure. this film is very much about an individual's personal quest to find themselves. gawain is not a knight at the beginning and there are frequent questions over whether he is ever really a knight in the true sense. there is also the question of whether the quest is more important than the destination. i must say that this film looks absolutely beautiful and is well worth seeing on that basis, it is not likely that you will soon see a film which appears more stunning. the film can be very dark in places, which sometimes made it hard to work out what was actually happening. darkness and shadow are used quite heavily here at many points. the sound design and music are equally wonderful, as is the choir which sometimes appears in the background. some of the music is medieval, some is very strange indeed; i was absorbed by the very weirdness of certain pieces such as the green knight theme. the green knight is an excellent design clearly designed to represent the green man legend. nature is seen as a palpable force in its own right, and magic as being real; the green knight's appearances often bring supernatural phenomena of some form with them. the talking fox was a nice idea but i didn't get it, i didn't understand quite what it was supposed to be and the cgi was not completely convincing. aside from the knight himself we also have the mysterious giants, an overtly fantastical element; much of the rest of the film feels fairly realistic and convincing. arthur is portrayed in a rather interesting way as a very elderly king who is looking increasingly fragile and helpless. morgana is depicted in a somewhat understated manner. there are a few unexpected and almost random incidents which do change the course of events, some were straightforward some i did not quite understand. joel edgerton's lord is quite important, by his words he implies that he actually knows gawain quite well; raising questions as to how this is so, possibly edgerton is another manifestation of the green knight himself. gawain takes the axe at an early stage and keeps it with him for some time; clearly this is symbolic in itself in some way as the camera often lingers on it and it becomes part of the plot, although exactly what it means i couldn't quite work out. there is a magical scarf which gawain wears around his waist which supposedly grants him invulnerability, this gift is significant as well and turns up at a number of points. gawain is passed arthur's sword at one point but has to give it up for the green knight's axe instead, perhaps this means that nature is more important than the human kingdom. another important point is that sometimes women turn up wearing blindfolds, there are at least two women who do this although why they do so is again not completely clear.