The Green Knight

[rynling]

I held off on watching The Green Knight because the trailer is stupid and all the reviews I read were unfavorable, but I finally sat down with it this weekend. It's fantastic. I think it's comparable to Crimson Peak in three ways:

(1) Like Crimson Peak, The Green Knight seems to be universally hated by professional (straight adult male) movie critics, but the writing and cinematography are actually quite good.

(2) Like Crimson Peak, The Green Knight has a trailer that makes it out to be a Genre™ movie, but it's actually really weird and interesting.

(3) Like Crimson Peak, The Green Knight has a strange and somewhat unfortunate ending, but this doesn't actually diminish the strength of the work as a whole.

Okay, another one:

Like Crimson Peak, The Green Knight is anti-British propaganda (by which I mean it's anti-propaganda, not necessarily anti-British) in that it's fully committed to exploring the sad reality behind British state-building myths.

Okay, one more:

Like Crimson Peak, The Green Knight makes excellent use of its lead male actor without being a star delivery vehicle. The movies aren't about having spicy dubiously consensual sex with Tom Hiddleston or Dev Patel, but it's there for the people who are into that sort of thing.

Okay, for real one more:

Like Crimson Peak, The Green Knight has its share of homoerotic subtext. Crimson Peak has some high-quality heroine/villainess moments, and The Green Knight has an epic lingering m/m kiss that I would very much like to screencap and draw fan art of next year.

TLDR: The Green Knight probably isn't for everyone, but it is very much for me.

Comments

[renegadefolkhero]

t h a n k y o u

This was on my list but I kinda forgot about it and IDK if I would have gotten around to it otherwise.

[rynling]

To be fair, I never would have watched it if I hadn't seen fan art from an artist I admire. The Green Knight feels very much like one of the mid-budget, not-quite-horror movies from the mid-to-late 2000s, and it made me realize how much I miss those sorts of smaller pieces that toe the line between "stylish" and "just plan weird." If you watch it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.