The Green Knight

Being a cinematic adaptation (or rather retelling) of the great anonymous British poem Sir Gawain & the Green Knight; a poem with which, until of late I was unacquainted: but Robert Graves, in The White Goddess brought the tale to my attention, as a central myth of my own just-passed lunisolar arboreal birth-month Tinne – so much for that! But what a legend it was: as I recently discovered in reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation. Granted Tolkien was a moralist; or at the very least a product of the Victorian era (praise God & Crown! in this case if no other) and good German blood running through my Christian heart, I take at face value the purity he presents in his telling, notwithstanding the over-fixation on alliteration to the loss of true symbolism. Therefore, as so often in life, “I had no expectations; but still was I disappointed.” Disappointed because such a fine poem, perhaps the best narrative yet written; surpassing, in any case Moses and Homer, should be reduced to what may be the single worst film I have ever seen. In my life. One often knows from the previews what one is in for (though not always) and my, God, how I feel sorry for the modern white bourgeoisie, if this is the worldview that reflects their wan existence, beyond decadence and nothingness. In short, the deliberate and quite transparent social (political, moral, aesthetic) aim of the picture is to subvert those very things the poem stands for, namely chastity, duty, honor. Thus I encourage anyone in whose breast still beats a heart – to watch the film, and know what we are up against! P.S. Even their mycological source material is wrong!