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March 28, 2024, 11:57:39 PM

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The Green Knight

Started by Butchers Blind, May 12, 2021, 12:21:37 PM

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SteveDave

Bloody good rep.

This felt like it was a Ben Wheatley jam. As in, I thought it was wank.

madhair60

i have to say, and I say this not wanting to be a contrarian or a snob of any sort, but I don't understand this movie being flagged up as especially visually striking. It doesn't look that far removed from MCU pelch.

Inspector Norse

I saw this yesterday and thought it was good to very good. Some reservations, but generally a solid effort.

It was very atmospheric, with a fine spooky soundtrack and the cinematography capturing a gloomy, dank, shadowy Dark Ages landscape and stripping the romance and glamour from the Arthurian tales in keeping with the film's cynical approach to chivalry and nobility. The themes of agency and control, morality and how we want to be seen were pretty well-explored, universal but with real contemporary relevance. An Arthurian legend for the social media age.
Patel was decent in the role of Gawain, but I think that the character's essentially being a self-serving wet blanket worked against the film to an extent, because it meant we didn't really get a charismatic or sympathetic lead. The rest of the cast were very good, though I couldn't figure out if Vikander's wandering accent (drawn out northern "lehhhhdy" in the same sentence as plummy Oxford "heart") was a deliberate touch to add to the film's unreal atmosphere or just a bit of rubbish dialogue coaching.
Other weak points included a tonal unevenness with some half-hearted attempts at lightening the tone, and a jarring glibness in things like intertitles that seemed lifted from a Maid Marian episode[nb]not that I'd ever criticise Maid Marian obviously, just the right tone wasn't struck here[/nb] and
Spoiler alert
the abrupt ending
[close]
. And the fox was shit: in fact the film was much better when it was using set design and landscape to create an effect, all the CGI bits were pants.

Ham Bap

This is coming to Amazon Prime on September 24.

mjwilson


wooders1978

Is now on said Amazon prime -I am planning on watching this tomorrow night so handbags on laps for the much anticipated "wooders opinion" on Sunday morning !

Bad Ambassador

Am watching it now. It's fucking interminable.

Old Nehamkin


mjwilson


Fishfinger

Made me want to watch Excalibur again.

Goldentony

this was utter shit for such long stretches that I kept forgetting the good bits and that I enjoyed myself for some of it. Anything after
Spoiler alert
the fucking rubbish at the house with Julian Assange and the insane sex woman and the close up of his belt soaked in fountains of hot cum
[close]
was wank. Plus
Spoiler alert
the fox
[close]
basically just being revealed to be
Spoiler alert
a bit of a tit
[close]

joaquin closet

I found the voice Sean Harris was doing very off-putting. And the voice Alicia Vikander was doing. And the voice Joel Edgerton was doing.

I liked Dev's voice though.

4/10

joaquin closet

Also, the Barry Keoghan "long-shot" with the incredibly obvious fog-across-camera stitches... why? Lowery been Mendes/Inarritu-pilled?

I'll tell you what's a great film – David Lowery's Pete's Dragon (2016). Was waiting around for my phone screen to get fixed and wandered into a cinema nearby. The screen full of parents + young children; and then me, all alone. Blubbed, I did.

Catalogue Trousers

It's basically The Last Temptation Of Gawain, isn't it? Also, what a cop-out
Spoiler alert
at the ending - real 'Child Roland to the dark tower came' shit. Give us a definite pay-off one way or the other, the way that previous film versions and, oh, the original fucking story did
[close]
.

It does look lovely, though: with some excellent performances. But it's far from an essential watch. A Facebook friend of mine says that it reminded him of Polanski's Macbeth, and that's not a bad snap judgement.

Old Nehamkin

I didn't read the ending as being particularly ambiguous to be honest. Isn't it just that
Spoiler alert
Gawain passes the test by removing his sash and facing his death with courage and the green knight, placated, sends him on his way with a whimsical pun ("off with your head")
[close]
?

Catalogue Trousers

Um, except that isn't how the story ends.

Spoiler alert
You probably know this, but the Green Knight brings the axe down and just nicks the back of Gawain's neck, as his honour's been satisfied. Gawain lives, in other words. And I know that you can assume that's what happens in this film if you want to, but it still feels a bit unresolved to any poor sod who doesn't know the original tale.
[close]

mjwilson

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on September 26, 2021, 01:26:00 PM
I didn't read the ending as being particularly ambiguous to be honest. Isn't it just that
Spoiler alert
Gawain passes the test by removing his sash and facing his death with courage and the green knight, placated, sends him on his way with a whimsical pun ("off with your head")
[close]
?

That's a reading certainly, not sure that is especially clear from the film.

Goldentony

why did this have to seem even shitter in hindsight

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I attempted to watch this yesterday, but the opening scenes were so dark and the evening sun so bright, I couldn't see a thing.

wooders1978

I had to stop halfway through to catch the equally dull Joshua fight and can't really be arsed to go back

shagatha crustie

Probably being a moody bastard but: shit. Really disappointing. Another bafflingly lauded film that seems unfamiliar with the basic principles of effective filmmaking, i.e. negotiating objects in a given space and stitching images of those objects together in the interest of drama and atmosphere.

Why is everything so fucking dark? Why is it edited like a music video or an advert, with nearly every scene intercut with other things that are happening in other places or at other times - especially the (scant) dialogue and moments where we might actually get to know the characters? Why is there so little interest in actually showing the expressions on the actors' faces? Why is a film supposedly about journey and place so ultimately disorienting, scattershot and uninviting?

I'm really sick of going to see hyped or acclaimed films and they follow this trend. 'Things that take you right out of a film' doesn't cut it - wasn't 'in' this for a second.

joaquin closet

Quote from: wooders1978 on September 28, 2021, 12:41:16 PM
I had to stop halfway through to catch the equally dull Joshua fight and can't really be arsed to go back

The Joshua fight was great you eejit

Blumf


Obel

Yeah I'm on the negative side here. Bollocks and way too long. Couldn't wait for it to end. Don't understand the appeal at all.

I wanted to love this but it got more disappointing the longer it went on. Liked the Camelot bit with the ghoulish, haunted Arthur & Guinevere, and the Ghost Gal interlude, but the film ended up feeling less than the sum of its parts.

Couldn't believe they went with the old
Spoiler alert
Owl Creek Bridge/Last Temptation of Christ
[close]
twist, which is so hackneyed at this point. I was desperately hoping for some subversion of expectations, but didn't get one.

I felt like some of the actors garbled their line readings as well, making some scenes unnecessarily hard to follow. I think if I hadn't read the original tale prior to watching I would've been really confused by some parts, particularly the whole business with the hunting and the gifts - you wouldn't have much clue from the film that the
Spoiler alert
kindly Lord and the Green Knight are one and the same, and the whole thing is just to test Gawain's virtue.
[close]

Twit 2

This was great. Bunch of philistines on this forum.

Wah! Ambiguity! Wah! Different from other films!

Pathetic.

Back to Marvel with ye. You make me SICK.[nb]This was an acquired taste for sure. I loved the moody photography; the otherworldly atmosphere; the gorgeous costumes and sets; the episodic, deliberately anti-climactic editing; the ambiguity of the themes; the interrogation of narrative; the parts that were faithful to the poem; the parts that were embellished by the director. Above all I enjoyed it for being different from most typical shite and for having a coherent and bold aesthetic. Can see why people would hate it, but it ticked my boxes. 8.5 / 10[/nb]