Netflix's 2019 movie “the king”, staring Timothée Chalamet as Hal (King Henry V), Joel Edgerton as Falstaff, Robert Pattinson as The Dauphin, Ben Mendelsohn as King Henry IV, amongst a whole other top stars stands out as one of the best medieval times movies and here are some reasons why.
Realistic
The movie has a lot of top notch realistic scenes and ideas. Most prominent of which is its fight scenes. The king fight scenes are all raw, slightly flimsy and surprisingly brutal. From drowning a man by holding his head down in mud, to Hal’s (Timothée Chalamet’s) fight with his cousin (who was supposed to go to war against his brother).
That scene was realistically grand, though it seemed slightly petty, the swords falling out of their hands, difficulty moving in the extremely inflexible metal armor, and getting to a good old fist fight punching a metallic helmet with a partly-metallic glove was a large one for me.
Let's also get down to the fact that the swords couldn't easily cut through the metal armor and simply banging on it most of the time was reasonable. It's good to see that it's not one insanely good swordsman charging through an entire army in beautiful choreography and laying waste to trained warriors with a single slice.
Low-key sarcasm
Firstly, after Hal just killed a man to save his brother, in grief of his actions, Falstaff comes to console him and tells him how he too have been a victim of depression from the same, hevakso told Hal, Timothée Chalamet’s character that “the glory of victory quickly fades away and is soon replaced by guilt”, also adding “never again” to his emotional confession.
I love how Hal later dragged Falstaff back into a war. I personally would have wanted to see how Falstaff dealt with the fresh guilt of war and sending men to their miry graves if he survived the battle, spoiler- sadly he didn't.
Reality
Lastly, the final fifteen minutes of the movie shows how crazy it can be in life for a person to chase something so passionately and will even be willing to lay down his or her life for something only to later realize he wants something else, misunderstood things from the get go, or altogether was wrong through most of it. Such comes with pain, regret, shame and the feeling of being a fool.
Also, very worthy of note. Though it doesn't justify or remedy the hundreds or possibly thousands of “Christian bloods” spilled, it shows a person owns up to his mistakes, corrects them (at least in his own myopic way), and moves on in life.
Also not planning for this post to get political, but also how that story will most likely never reach anybody (in the movie), as is in reality today.
And very importantly before I forget, how not all errors can be corrected. His good friend Cambridge (who he killed) can't be resurrected neither can the soldiers killed, especially not “The Dauphin” who died a very anticlimactic and silly death. Not all errors can be corrected; move on.
That's all for now. Potentially more on this later. What are your major thoughts and take from the movie?
