Epic medieval fantasy fans rejoice

The chiaroscuro-heavy “The Green Knight” reminds us that it was quite dark in the Dark Ages. While the film is subtitled as “A Chivalric Romance,” it won’t strike most as overly amorous.

After a stunning opening shot in the style of a tableau vivant, we meet our desultory hero, Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), who awakes in the messy bed of his brothel-dwelling paramour Essel (Alicia Vikander). As he prepares to head off to a Christmas feast at the castle, he loses track of his boots. But despite his disheveled appearance, he’s called to the side of the dimly-lit King (Sean Harris) and Queen (Kate Dickie), whose faces are so drawn they appear to be in a living state of decomposition. In a strained whisper, the King asks Gawain to regale him with a tale, but the young man doesn’t have any appropriate stories to share before his regent and the other knights around the table.

Happily, the giant Green Knight (Ralph Ineson’s booming voice —perhaps the best of any working actor — perfectly suits the otherworldly nature of his role) — tromps into the hall and challenges the bravest knight to a fight. Our hero lops off his head, but the monster picks it up off the ground and the still sentient lips make Gawain promise to visit the Green Knight one Christmas hence to receive a blow in return.

Gawain’s mother (Sarita Choudhury) has a witchy charm about her and sees big things for her boy — she incants all matter of protections to see him through his ordeals. He spends his fame on whores and mead and soon it’s time to start his journey to the Green Chapel to meet the Knight. Apparently no one could spare a map, so Gawain sets out into the great unknown. We can tell it’s not going to be a whole lot of fun as he crosses through a field of felled trees, a skeleton left in a cage at the crossroads, and a battlefield strewn with corpses. Gawain gets some bad directions from Scavenger (Barry Keoghan, still playing a rotten kid even at age 28) who steals his horse and weapons with some other forest people.

The film segues into many long wordless passages in nature, calling to mind “The Revenant.” And, this being an English story, there is of course a magical fox (perhaps a distant cousin of Lars von Trier’s vulpine interlocutor in “Antichrist”). Toward the end of his trek, Gawain happens upon improbable manor where a Lord (Joel Edgerton) and Lady (Vikander again, now in regal attire rather than tatty harem-wear) sit ensconced in riches. The strongest bit of writing in the film is a monologue in which the Lady compares the hues red and green at length, offering a reminder that language can be sexy. Still, Gawain is deterred from canoodling with her by his shaky sense of honor, and the blindfolded old woman who always sits with the owners without ever being acknowledged.

Director David Lowery has created a quite original work, especially notable for its inventive recurrence of circular tropes, emphasizing the passage of a year, the way verdigris will overcome your sword, your bones, and your virtue. He’s greatly assisted by the painterly work by cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo. Characters are often shot to resemble portraits of saints and the landscape is a consistently arresting palette of grey, blue, and green. It’s truly incredible to check the budget of “The Green Knight” and think about how films that cost ten times more look much worse than this one.

Fans of “Game of Thrones” will no doubt find this an opaquer picture than they were expecting. Gawain himself mutters, “I see things everywhere that bear no logic,” but Lowery draws us along with an earthy, visceral intensity. Especially on a big screen that captures all the nuances of color and texture, the film feels like reclining a clammy bed of moss. Eventually, Gawain must meet his destiny and learn that life is about finishing whatever game you start, even if you’d prefer not to.