Review: In 'The Green Knight,' an enchanting Arthurian dream

David Lowery's adaptation of the 14th century chivalric romance, “The Green Knight,” was shot on misty Irish plains and dank forests, is earthy, with dirt under its nails, and blanketed in wintery fog

Why, for starters, is the Green Knight green? It's a question that's long vexed scholars of the 14th century chivalric romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." The movie, like the epic poem, is full of mysteries, most of them unspoken. But the knight's unlikely color — Why isn't he a more typical knightly blue? — is a question voiced by the characters of David Lowery’s adaptation, “The Green Knight.” He's green, answers Dev Patel's Sir Gawain, because it's the shade of rot. The Green Knight, as seen in Lowery's enchanting Arthurian dream, is an imposing tree of a man, with a wispy beard of twigs and a wooden mane whose movements rustle with the sound of bended, creaking branches. (He's played by a much-costumed Ralph Ineson.) Early in “The Green Knight,” he rides on Christmas Day into King Arthur's court, cloaked in shadow, and offers a game. Strike him wherever you want, and he will repay the same stroke a year hence at his Green Chapel. Gawain, freshly inspired by King Arthur to be ambitious after spending his days drinking and carousing, takes up the challenge and boldly chops off the knight's head. The thrall of victory quickly turns ominous when the Green Knight stands, picks up his head and — with more menace than even an unwanted houseguest promising to return for the holidays — says he'll see the young man next Christmas.