PrimeWire

The Green Knight is brilliant.  It is, perhaps, the film David Lowery was born to make.
First and foremost, Lowery understands this story for what it is.  This is threefold.  The Green Knight is a fairy tale, and therefore fairy tale logic applies.  There is not a lot of exposition in dialogue.  In tales like this characters don’t need to explain themselves all the time.  Their motives are societal and cultural, understood by its audience as almost a second nature.  Time stretches and contracts, animals are trusted guides, magic is real.  Given.  Unquestioned.
Second, this story is one told over centuries.  It is Celtic in origin, but was woven into Norman and Anglo-Saxon culture, and picked up different flavors in its telling and retelling across peoples, years, and languages.  Lowery handles this very well in not nailing down a pronunciation of Gawain’s name.  He is Gawain, G’Wayne, Gow-in, Gown, because he has had all these names and retains them still, simultaneously.
Third, this is a chivalric tale.  In very very basic terms…  The Norman (French) word for horse is cheval.  A horseman (knight) is a chevalier.  Therefore the rules that govern the knightly class are called chivalry.  Chivalric tales, told through the form of epic poems, laid down rules and examples of how someone with those resources and level of power was to govern himself.  The chief principles were five, represented by the five pointed star that you see again and again in this film; generosity, courtesy, chastity, friendship, and piety.  Gawain’s journey to see the Green Knight sees him facing tests to prove these values in himself.  Boy Scout badges in a pre-modern world with life and death consequences.
If I get into a plot breakdown of how all this is done I’ll be here all day.  If I dive into the symbolism that Lowery has so expertly laced throughout the film, I’ll be here all week.