Showing posts with label David Lowery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Lowery. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

The Green Knight

Born of lofty rank yet lacking bold chivalric industry, King Arthur's nephew lounges and carouses as the dolorous days pass by in Camelot.

Age has greeted the King with kind and pleasant noteworthy grace, his deeds admired and celebrated his rule enduring just unchallenged. 

His days of colloquially questing have fondly passed into history however, yet he still considers ornate pageantry when congenially conversing with younger generations. 

His nephew's mother grows weary of the reckless ill-composed dissolute inconsiderate debauchery, and embraces witchcraft to conjure a trial which may bring honour and widespread renown. 

The King recognizes the stately spirit of bygone days in the cynosure sorcery, and grants his nephew torrential tidings illustriously reckoned with regal resonance. 

Thus, when an agéd knight of ancient legend arrives in court on Christmas day, and courageously challenges the solemn round table to a mystic exchange of bombastic blows, Arthur tasks his unproven nephew with urgently responding to the murky mischief, and uncertain of his honourable objective, he proceeds to cut off the Green Knight's head. 

But the challenge indeed firmly stated that that very same blow would be returned the next year.

At which point Gawain must head to the countryside.

And seek the Green Knight alone.

It's classic mismatching temperaments resoundingly radiating obscure elasticity, as a profound misjudgment unwittingly leads to upright disillusion and serpentine sentiment. 

Bravely challenged in front of the council whose habitual deeds had been highly praised, Gawain thought it wise to respond in epic fashion and diabolical display.

Nervous regarding his status and intuitively seeking his uncle's regard, he reacts with far too much ferocity to awkwardly fit in with ill-suited surroundings. 

Had he wisely announced that he had no quarrel with the mischievous knight, and refused to thrash him or exchange blows his humble recognition may been rewarded, he would have risked the gawking discredit of the emboldened nobles within the room, but many others would have noted how brave it indubitably was to refuse the challenge.

That wouldn't have been much of a film nevertheless I sedately and sensationally suppose, although it would have snuggly fit his reliable personality as it had been cast.

A maladroit meander through the surreal bewildering lands of legendary England therefore awaits, the knight becoming more and more distressingly confused with each passing unassuming spirited day. 

Pay close attention and make sure to catch the extant grizzly amidst the whale bones.

Mirthful macabre mayhem. 

A comedic foil in the superhero age. 

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

A Ghost Story

A Ghost Story takes itself rather seriously for a bizarro religious art film, opening with intense sorrowful classical music that accompanies the plodding uninspiring narrative for awhile before unobtrusively fading into the dull background.

Not much is known about the featured character before he chooses to remain with Earthen realms, forever spectating his former haunts, dolorously watching as life continues unaffected, self-inflicted emotional torment meets phantasmagorical purposeless attention, dry lifeless exchanges with other ghosts, pointlessness carrying on.

A number of mournful scenes then adorn the story with motionless static depressing longevity, which would have been more tragic if there was more of a reason to care, before, suddenly, wondrously, the camera starts moving, beautiful music then igniting a jaunty passionate grizzled condemnation of nihilism, the finite, the unimaginative, the plain, no counterargument forthcoming which makes sense considering the circumstances (that guy at the party), as the derelict observes, unable to intervene.

Afterwards we're treated to a remarkably creative lively endearing artistic exposition of convivial charm and romantic playfulness, which compensates for the drab meaningless anguish earlier, providing the rationale for the former bland rendition, from vapidity to virtuosity, David Lowery intellectually shining.

I would have left the ghost business out and focused on developing different compelling dialogues for different historical periods transitioning from one to another within the same remote locale instead.

Watch the whole thing, it's impressive, but could have been much more alluring, more penetrating, more provocative, more enigmatic, if it had embraced random ethereal flux, rather than lugubriously making a point that isn't that sharp or innovative.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Pete's Dragon

A child's imagination can limitlessly prosper as it infinitely expands if pedagogically nurtured like a flourishing free spirit.

In David Lowery's Pete's Dragon, we find a young child (Oakes Fegley as Pete) who has been living in the woods for several years under the watchful eye of a caring dragon.

Elliot's the beastie's name.

His existence is undeniable in the film, but, if he is thought of as representing limitless imagination and Pete has developed limitless imagination while growing up on his own in the wild, then after he is discovered by humankind, what becomes of that imagination in terms of future potential?

In terms of the options available in town?

Two brothers are presented, one (Wes Bentley as Jack) who owns a logging company and abides by the law when extracting timber, and another (Karl Urban as Gavin) who manages the company on the ground and breaks those laws in order to earn higher profits.

Either way Pete's imagination will have to adapt to human civilization, since both options extract wood from the forest.

Jack takes Pete in while waiting to hear from child services, after Pete befriends his daughter Natalie (Oona Laurence), and for the first time since the fatal car accident in the film's opening moments, Pete is surrounded by and immersed within nourishing comforts, comforts that can lovingly engage his imagination.

Meanwhile Gavin, having learned of Elliot's existence, hunts down and viciously traps him, thereby attempting to turn Pete's imagination into an estranged exploited sideshow.

Cunning and ingenuity, no doubt the reflexive byproducts of that imagination, enable Pete and his friends to free tethered Elliot, who is then chased by his would be oppressor, and forced to unleash incendiary objections.

Foes defeated and stability secured, in the end we see Elliot and Pete reunited, Elliot having found companions as well, or Pete having developed an in/dependent artistic/commercial sensitivity, nurtured by a disposable income.

Perhaps not the most well rounded layer of metaphorical interactivity, but if relativity is applied to expand upon the definitions of stability and comfort, as it should be if Elliot is taken into consideration, and these definitions proliferate within the realm of free choice, it's possible that everyone could have their own community of dragons, loveable in their specialized elasticities, curious to energetically explore.

Why the heck not?

As Summer is applied to the upcoming scholastic year?

It's a wikithing.

I can be cheesier.