The distributive epic of David Lowery’s The Green Knight is comparable to Galvano’s journey to challenge the film’s titular Green Knight. The hand is always that of Pandemia in Coronavirus, but among the independent projects ready to come out last year this one produced by the A24 turned out to be the most awaited and at the same time problematic. Expected because the epic and fantasy fascinations proposed by Lowery, under the aegis of a company now known for the quality of its projects, have raised the bar of expectations; problematic because the A24 and the author himself absolutely did not want a video on demand distribution. This would indeed have undermined the depths the aesthetic and cinematographic caliber of the film, and it was therefore decided to wait.
A year after what should have been its big screen debut, The Green Knight has finally come to show itself in all its heroic and grandiose glory in the official full trailer, which looks like it. anticipate a complex and bewitching transposition of one of the most gloomy, savvy and even a bit cruel stories from the Arcturian Cycle (or the Foundation Myth) dedicated to the valor and honor of a knight. And from what we have seen in the video, Lowery seems to have wanted to translate Sir’s chivalrous novel. Galvano in a tremendously ambitious film of extraordinary visual significance.
Foxes and giants
This is neither the first project taken from the King Arthur Saga nor the first film inspired by Sir Galvano and the Green Knight. In this regard, in the past two films have been shot on the same story: the first in 1973 directed by Stephen Weeks e the second in 1984 by Miles O’Keeffe who saw the late Sir. Sean Connery in the role of the Green Knight. The latter, entitled Sword of the Valiant, remains the most famous and cult, but in principle both transpositions failed to adapt the chivalrous novel with a unique and original vision, focusing on the artisanal fantasy aesthetic of the time and a translation of content that is more theatrical than cinematographic.
What transpires immediately from David Lowery’s The Green Knight trailer is this marked desire for a search for epicness starting first of all from the image, of which the author of The Story of a Ghost and The Invisible Dragon is a great lover, without forgetting, however, themes and narrative comparisons of significance and central to the evolution and development of the story. The story of Sir Galvano, as we said, represents Arthurian substance in its substance respect for a knight’s code of honor, which in fact sees Galvano forced to leave for a perilous journey towards certain death in full compliance with his oaths of values. In fact, and it is the most fascinating thing about this complex novel, the primary concept lies in the overturning the reading of a knight’s code of honor, a game aimed at unmasking the inherent vices in human nature, the same ones that undermine the values of the knights of the round table. Many scholars have come to relate to this a Christian and biblical reading of the work, where Galvano is Adam and therefore a sinner and The Green Knight is the God of the old testament, therefore a punisher.
Looking at the trailer for Lowery’s film, however, you notice first of all a significant respect for the drama behind Galvano’s journey. It is evident from the video the fight that the character played by Dev Patel he undertakes with himself, questioning his strength and recognizing himself as proud and afraid but still ready to fight the adversities he himself created. In the journey, then, many accessory elements but of masterful beauty that Lowery seems to have chosen to donate a tone of absolute mythicity to this path towards death, but also as original fillers to narrative ellipses present in the novel itself.
There is a talking fox that probably represents the conscience and the cunning of the knight and there are also giants that walk free in the Kingdom of Camelot, this to accentuate the climate of epic fantasy chosen by the author, to center the path of They roam along rugged wastelands, crumbling marshes and forests bristling with enemies, never forgetting the sense of the sublime, that is the submission of human amazement to the grandeur of nature.
Here’s what David Lowery’s The Green Knight looks like at first glance: a sublime transposition of a powerful and ethically timely novel of chivalry turning to epic and fantasy but does not forget the drama and the themes at the heart of the story.
The duration of 2 hours also seems excellent for the narrative and cinematographic purposes of the story of the film, edited by Lowery himself, in his third test as editor after the already renowned Upstream Color by Shane Carruth and Story of a Ghost. Everything seems in the right place to surprise, including the contrasting color choices and the even gloomy tones that can be read in some passages of the movie, but unfortunately we just have to wait until the end of June to understand if The Green Knight may be what the author’s magnum opus actually looks like.