movies Ok, I think we should probably discuss "The Green Knight"

I had a terrible nightmare the other night, that I couldn't seem to wake up from. I was watching this movie, and it kept going in surreal, nonsensical directions. It was called "The Green Knight"

I knew I was dreaming because it looked like a 20 million dollar movie, but literally nothing about it made any sense whatsoever. Not the characters, not the order of the scenes, not the directing, not the plotline, other than the ?protagonist? I couldn't seem to keep track of who the characters were. I watched the entire film, and at the end I feel like I knew less about the movie than when I began.

Did anyone else see this thing? Did I imagine it? And if someone else did see it, can you tell me what the hell is going on? People write scripts for 20 years and keep getting rejected, how did this movie get made?

Why did any of the characters do any of the things they did? Was there a hidden message? Was this a philosophical allegory about the nature of life?

Deeply confused and unsettled by this film. lol.
 
Actually this was a pretty good movie. Well written too.

The overall message of the movie is about human greed and the futility of chasing materialistic things in life. The tree represents life/god/peace/green/acceptance/how things are supposed to be. The waist band represents fear of loosing materialistic things/rejecting death/lust/greed/selfishness/red.

The king is dying and next in line is the protagonist. His mother summons the tree in an attempt to teach him the true ways of life to be ready to be the next king. The protagonist is constantly chasing shallow goals such as honor/power/lust. At the end of the movie in his vision it shows all these things lead to destruction. Only by accepting life as it is (death included) and letting go of all shallow materialistic desires one earns the right to be king.

The ghost in the cabin scene is one such example : after she asks him to go to the bottom of the lake to retrieve her head, he asks her : "what do I get in return?" to which she replies reproachfully:" why would you ever ask that?" meaning good deeds should be done because they are the right thing to do and not because you expect to be paid back.

All the scenes in the mysterious castle have similar messages. The woman talks about red vs green which I explained above. The hunter guy also asks him if he ever found anything in this castle to share it with him to which the protagonists replies:" what can I find in your house that is not already yours?" . The hunter guy was referring to the vast source of knowledge(the big library). The woman tests him to see if he chooses the green/peace/acceptance or red/lust/selfishness/greed/fear of death. He chooses the waist band so "no one or thing can ever hurt him ever" which is the red. After he fails the test and gives in to lust and greed she tells him that he is no knight.

At the final scenes he finally comes to terms with his mortality( acceptance/ green/life) by taking off the waist band. To which the tree proudly replies I'm proud of you. Meaning he was finally ready to be king. In the after credit scene we see the protagonist's little daughter playing with his crown. Implying that he made king and he does not care about a piece of jewelry(the crown) to be on his head to prove to him self that he is king.
 
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Foxes are the symbol of cunning in the world. They appear as your friend but in reality they don't want the best for you. During his journey the fox feigned friendship but when he got close to the tree cave the fox was trying to tempt him to turn back and remain a coward(by turning away from death and running away for his life). If you pay close attention to the giants scene you'll notice the giants wanted to help him and carry him on their shoulder to his destination but the fox howled at them asking them not to. So they didn't help him because of the fox. At first glance you would think the fox saved his life but the giants had no intention of hurting him. Hence the cunning nature of foxes.
 
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The fox is part of the protagonists ego. The protagonist doesn't want to go to its destination. He is the fox...In the The painting you see the hunter hunts foxes but in the end you see on the painting that the hunter will hunt the protagonist.
 
I usually write long elaborate posts, but there is no need here. I think you've explained the symbolism well, and your interpretation makes sense. I got the feeling that if I watched it again I might understand it's symbolism better, but you've saved me 2 hours. Thanks! I now actually like this movie, since I agree completely with it's messaging. There was a time, across many years, that I made this same transformation myself. When young and poor in character, I made some of these same mistakes, but in time came to realize everything laid out here. That appearing good for selfish reasons is actually more evil than good (see virtue signaling on social media vs Denzel secretly visiting kids in hospitals), that gaming the system is more cowardice than cunning. That your ego will defeat you before any opponent has a chance to, and that once you are actually strong, there is no longer a need to appear strong, or for others to recognize it.

I think that our modern world has made it more difficult for people to make this journey of character, since what we often see rewarded are the weakest and shallowest of characters. The greatest among us (Nicolai Tesla, Norman Borlaug) often marginalized and underappreciated, while the weakest and most unspectacular are given incredible resources and attention (Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump). I feel like modern culture sends every wrong message at once, and it's getting harder for people growing up to learn maturity of character.

I'm sure I still have much to learn, but the funny thing is, when I was 20, I already knew everything. Someone should write an allegorical movie about Dunning-Krueger now.
 
I usually write long elaborate posts, but there is no need here.
Are You Sure Schitts Creek GIF by CBC
 
You know, the funny thing about this, is that while you are perhaps hinting that I should write a bit less, I actually wish you would write more. You are a filmmaker, a musician, an entrepreneur, a creative, surely you have a lot to say. I think we'd all be interested in hearing more about you. I once clicked on a twitter post from you labeled "about me" it was of course a repost of some welcome message by a random filmmaker "searching for existentialism in a haze of bong smoke" I was a little disappointed.
 
Wasn't hinting! Thought it was funny how you stated that but made the longest post lol.

I would never want anyone to post less here it's not exactly hopping! 😂
 
Despite some things I don't like, overall I liked The Green Knight quiet a bit. It's pretty straight forward, especially after you've read summaries of the original tales. Pedramyz did a fine job of explaining it. For me there's still a head scratcher. Maybe you can explain it, Pedramyz.
The hero is mugged and then apparently dies of exposure etc. Then it seems he is brought back to life. What's going on there? Does the Green Knight resurrect him? Is it the belt? What's the idea?
It is a pretty goofy morality tale at heart which I do not care for much. But the film is visually gorgeous. It's nicely acted.
 
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Despite some things I don't like, overall I liked The Green Knight quiet a bit. It's pretty straight forward, especially after you've read summaries of the original tales. Pedramyz did a fine job of explaining it. For me there's still a head scratcher. Maybe you can explain it, Pedramyz.
The hero is mugged and then apparently dies of exposure etc. Then it seems he is brought back to life. What's going on there? Does the Green Knight resurrect him? Is it the belt? What's the idea?
It is a pretty goofy morality tale at heart which I do not care for much. But the film is visually gorgeous. It's nicely acted.

It was just part of his visions. Like the ending vision he had. He saw the vision that if he stays tied up there he is going to die and only his skeletons will remain by the next year. He snapped out of it and tried to unbind the ropes.
 
It was just part of his visions. Like the ending vision he had. He saw the vision that if he stays tied up there he is going to die and only his skeletons will remain by the next year. He snapped out of it and tried to unbind the ropes.

Awesome. I'm sure you're right about that. I figured that was the likely explanation, too. But that leads me to another question, or at least to a thought.

This is what happens next, according to Wikipedia:
By nightfall, Gaiwan arrives at an abandoned cottage and falls asleep in the bed. He is awakened by the ghost of a young woman named Winifred, who asks Gawain to retrieve her head from a nearby spring. When he returns with her skull, he sees her skeleton in the bed, to which he adds the skull. The next morning, the axe has been returned to him.


I think it's implied, I guess unintentionally, that Scavenger is Winifred's murderer. She was killed by a man with an axe. Gawain finds his stolen axe at the cottage. Although Wikipedia seems to think it is simply his reward for helping her, it looks suspicious to me. Scavenger seems exactly like the kind of man to try to rape and then murder someone. And he had recently(?) acquired an axe which turns up at her cottage. Hmmm. And when Gawain finds her head it is a skull absent its flesh, which presumably had long since decayed away. Likewise, he finds her body as a skeleton. Both suggest a substantial passage of time between the time of her death and the time Gawain finds her. Could it be Scavenger found Winifred after robbing Gawain of his axe and killed her with it? I kind of like that would-be scenario. Then Winifred's murder would be, in a sense, another consequence of Gawain's quest, mugging, and perhaps of his, maybe, too genteel and timid handling of the thugs who robbed him, etc.

It's pretty clear that's not what the filmmakers intended. I realize, for one thing, it would mess up the timeline of the story; were that the case, presumably everyone Gawain knew in his life, at Camelot, would also be long dead and gone. Not a happy ending.
 
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I recall Winifred saying to him that my murderer is someone you know. Yes the murderer is probably the scavenger. But he probably murdered her long before he got his hands on the axe. Otherwise as you said it would mess up the film's timeline. Also there is a nice juxtaposing between Gawain and the scavenger for this scene which further connects the scavenger to the murder of Winifred. Which is doing good deeds without expecting anything in return ( as I explained before) as the scavenger is obviously incapable of such actions in the scene where he gives Gawain information and asks to be paid for it and we see Winifred condemns this sort of behavior. As for how the axe mysteriously showed up in the house, my guess is he just got bored of it and lost it at which point Winifred retrieved it for Gawain.
 
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