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When the knight raises his axe, Gawain falters.
In a stunning, wordless sequence, we see what happens next.
Gawain returns to Camelot, is hailed as a hero, and is eventually crowned king.
But the moral rot of the lie begins to poison his soul.
But it turns out that was just a vision.
Having been scared straight, he removes the girdle, then faces the axe, finally prepared to die.
Then we cut to black,Sopranosstyle.
(Though witha cheery folk balladinstead of Journey.)
Thats the enigmatic ending toThe Green Knight, David Lowerys dazzling new medieval fantasy.
Its a finale sure to inspire endless rounds of what-happens-next theorizing.
Does Gawain get his head chopped off?
Or does the Green Knight spare him, as in the epic poem the film is based on?
The unknowability seems to have been the point.
Cutting to black doesnt just spare the audience the sight ofone of our favorite onscreen dreamboatsgetting brutally killed.
Before leaving, he refuses to commit to his lowborn lover Essel (Alicia Vikander).
But after being presented with a glimpse of his possible future, he realizes the emptiness of that worldview.
Its his actions themselves, not the rewards they might bring, that matter.
Lowerys jarring ending presents this same lesson to the audience.
For him, the noble thing to do would be to submit to his own death.
And I wanted to be very black and white about that.
Lowerys harsher stance may be an artifact of our more skeptical times.
But if you ask me, Im thinking the Green Knight still lets him off the hook.
Maybe because of the glint in the giants eye when he speaks his final line.
And maybe because this is a movie that already has one happy ending whats one more?
