This was the era just in the wake of the multi-continent Roman Empire, and trade through Africa and Asia would have been well-established. Historically speaking, there’s no reason to think Asian or otherwise dark-skinned people would have been an unfamiliar sight in the sixth-century British Isles. Even without overt commentary within the film, though, the casting choices heavily shape this adaptation of a medieval chivalric romance, animating it with thoroughly modern anxieties about race, identity, and the outsider experience. Skin color, however, is never remarked upon.
Lowery’s film is obsessed with color and its symbolism, from its color-coded sequences to a tour-de-force monologue on green and red.
In addition to a tidal wave of thirst, Dev Patel’s casting as Gawain in David Lowery’s much-hyped medieval blockbuster The Green Knight brings in another element rarely seen in adaptations of Arthurian epics: melanin.
