The Green Knight (2021) We're torn in half over this one and racking what's left of our brain cells on how to post a review that makes any sense.......
We can't decide if this film is either one of the most imaginative, visually brilliant pieces of art we've ever seen......
......or one of the most pretentious, maddening and near unwatchable pieces of overblown crap we've ever punished ourselves by sitting through......
Or maybe both?
Film critics went all in with that first opinion, lavishing 4 star praise on it.
And whole bunches of folks who went to see it, had that second impression. Including us.
So much to admire here, the eerie cinematography, the mysterious, dangerous atmosphere, the startling images, the subtle nuances of the actors.
But the film stays impenetrable and cut off from any connection to an audience trying to understand it. With non-existent pacing, it stays stubbornly inert and a puzzlement from its first minute to its last.
This is not so much a storytelling exercise.....more of a beautifully rendered painting that's slightly animated, a carefully composed display of some dark, unknowable world swirling around in the director's mind.
On its surface, it's a fractured re-imagining of the Medieval fable 'Gawain And the Green Knight', in which the untested young would-be Arthurian knight Gawain crosses swords with a monstrous, mythical opponent, the Green Knight.
Gawain, portrayed deftly here by Dev Patel, is a feckless, wayward wastrel who on behalf of his uncle King Arthur (Jared Harris) accepts the Green Knight's challenge to exchange one blow apiece.
The Green Knight, some kind of giant talking tree, astounds one and all by picking up and reattaching his own head after Gawain's lopped it off.......and warns Gawain that under the rule of the challenge, Gawain has to meet him in a year.....and allow ole Greeny to strike the same blow in return.....ouch.
And after a year's drunken carousing, Gawain embarks on his epic quest to find Big Green and let him put Gawain's head on the...uh....cutting edge. Along the way there's mystical, harrowing encounters with thieves, giants, witches, temptresses.....and even a talking fox.
We realize that we're running the risk of making this film sound entrancing and bizarrely exciting to watch.
It isn't.
"The Green Knght" proceeds with lethal, sleep-inducing slowness, with no real interest in telling its story in any meaningful, compelling way to anyone who views it.
The film's obsessed with its own visual splendors and nothing else, crawling down its own rabbit hole, oblivious to an audience, but daring us to stay with it and make sense of it.
We doubt anyone but lifelong cinema purists will take up the challenge of watching this film in its entirety. Life's too short to sit through a movie that's a such a pain in the ass to suffer through for over 2 long, long, long hours.
Therefore, we're going to supply two separate ratings......
FOR CINETASTES, LIFETIME FILM BUFFS WHO'LL SEE ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING: 4 stars (****). You all need to experience this at least once....to say you've seen it before you die.....
FOR EVERYBODY ELSE WHO DOESN'T FALL INTO THE ABOVE CATEGORY: Zero stars (0). Don't go anywhere near this movie. Give it a wide, wide pass. You'll end up bailing out of it long before it's over..........
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