The king celebrates Christmas in the castle, surrounded by the court and loyal knights, where the mysterious Green Knight suddenly appears and offers to accept his challenge. Anyone present can stab him, but after a year and one day he will have to meet the Green Knight in the green chapel nine days’ journey north and take the blow back. Young Sir Gawain, nephew and only heir to the king, is challenged to a duel and chops off the strange guest’s head. But he, putting his head in place, recalls the agreement and leaves. A year later, faithful to his word, Sir Gawain sets out to meet fate on a journey full of dangers.
4k movies reviews
The Knights of the Round Table, led by King Arthur (Sean Harris), celebrate Christmas at Camelot Castle, but Sabantuy does not go according to plan for long. The doors to the royal hall are thrown open and the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) enters in on a dashing horse. Ignoring the alarmed lads, he invites the king to play a game. The rules are simple: any of Arthur’s people can strike the Green Knight with a sword in any area of ​​the body, but in return he will repay the one who struck with the same coin exactly one year later in a place located several leagues of the way from Camelot and called the Green Chapel. The young Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), who is the king’s nephew, is called to play a funny game, and violently blows the violent head from the shoulders of the Knight, which falls to the floor with a crash, flying off the body. The body also falls down, but not for long: the fallen warrior rises to his feet, picks up a firebrand, reminds the slightly crazed Gawain of the conditions of the game, and majestically leaves the royal hall. Now you cannot envy the king’s relative: time flies quickly, and the ax-head is not far off.
Visual
Cameraman Andrew Palermo did a great job: the views of medieval England shown from the screen are truly impressive with stately beauty and sullen solidity: natural beauty is beautiful in its silent indifference to man. The Legend of the Green Knight looks quite stylish and even dignified.
The creative fraternity of artists has also done a great job: the costumes do not give off cheap “anime” quality, and the Middle Ages are felt in every shot. In David Lowry’s film, you will not see a colorful fantasy world; the atmosphere here is gloomy, oppressive in places. It’s a dark fantasy in every sense.
This is not the first time Lowry has worked with Weta Digital, which has created visual effects for dozens of films, from The Lord of the Rings to the recent Suicide Squad. And here we must admit that the effects in “Legend …” are at their best. All the characters met by Sir look quite good, and some even bewitching.
Actors and roles
Dev Patel looks more like a Spanish conquistador than King Arthur’s nephew (which is no wonder: Indian blood flows in his veins), but this does not provoke cognitive dissonance in his head. Patel looks confident. He played a difficult role: Gawain is an ambiguous hero, and can hardly be called positive.
Joel Edgerton flaunts a cunning and fatherly kind Leninist squint, Alicia Vikander plays two roles at once, coping with both brilliantly, and Ralph Ineson is not particularly visible in the Green Knight for makeup and graphics. Ineson’s character has a special charm, but he doesn’t have as much screen time as he would like.
Director’s vision
Lowry’s film is a film adaptation of the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This poem carries a lot of hidden meanings, allegories, messages and symbolisms … But what does it all matter if “The Legend …” is just boring to watch? Even if you suppress the persistent desire to fall asleep closer to the middle of the film, and watch it to the end, there is a great risk of not understanding the director’s complex idea. Being unfamiliar with the original source (at least approximately), it is difficult to understand what is happening on the screen. Moreover, Lowry added a lot of himself, apparently deciding to diversify the story.
His vision of a 14th century poem is rather unusual. He departed from the canon, and it did not do any good. Many meanings that English linguists, philosophers and other researchers of everything in the world managed to find in a medieval poetic work have blurred and became not entirely clear: what is happening in the Legend … can be interpreted not only in two ways, but also in three ways.
Mournful howls hammer in the ears throughout the film; whether the church, or someone else. Whatever happens to the venerable Gawain, the soundtrack is the same: howl. Sir rides on a horse – howl, sir wanders through the forest – howl, Sir sees a ghost – howl, meets Sir giants – howl. The giants, by the way, also howl. Daniel Hart is a good composer (who would argue), but something went wrong.
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (68.9 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Audio
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles
English SDH, Spanish.
