Lancelot do Lago

I'm still inching into the cinema of Robert Bresson, as I would a hot bath. I saw Pickpocket a couple of months ago. I liked it, but didn't agree that it was a masterpiece of any sort. I picked up Lancelot of the Lake because the video box caught my eye. I didn't expect a French New Wave guy to be directing Medieval drama (I also rented Rohmer's Perceval at the same time, but have not yet watched it), especially Bresson, whom I associate with a certain slowness.

The result is mixed. The film is certainly not entirely successful, but I'd say that it is an extraordinarily interesting film. I have a problem with his decision to erase all emotion from his actors. That works decently in Pickpocket, but not as well here. The story takes place after the Knights of the Round Table have failed to find the Holy Grail. They return defeated. They feel that they have been denied by God himself. And then they begin to doubt themselves, and eventually to turn against each other. The story is one that ought to be imbued with emotions, especially Lancelot and Guinivere. Also, Lancelot's enemies, who are jealous of his affair with the queen more than they are angry on King Arthur's behalf, their rivalry should be readable on their faces. Instead, the actors emote about as much as cardboard cutouts. I guess Bresson is going for naturalism, but he falls way below that mark. Real people have emotions.

On the other hand, Robert Bresson's direction, that is, everything but the acting, is excellent. Most everything works, and there are many masterful sequences. It's perfectly paced (well, that is, if you like his style). The editing is often amazing. The art direction and music are also very good. As for the script, well, it can sometimes be confusing. Once in a while, I got a bit lost. But most of it works really well. 7/10.

You know that everything is possible and cinema has no limits when the most austere, minimalist and anti-conventional director of all-time shoots his version of the story of Camelot... and makes a masterpiece. In the first shot we see two unknown knights having a typical medieval fight; one of them eventually is hit and fall dead, and some blood runs through the ground. The winner goes away. But the difference is that it is shown in the most raw way possible, without any kind of beauty or visual show to please the audience. That's the essence of Bresson's cinema: "only the necessary", said the master. Then, after the credits, we see that is not the Holy Grail story, the traditional story, but what happens next, it begins were the legend ends. The knights return demoralized to the kingdom. Their leader, Percival, is lost, and Lancelot blames himself and his adultery with Guinevere as the reason that the Grail was not found- the search for it was, for him, also the search for God. The Queen is not convinced, and ask his love with words which have nothing extraordinary alone; however, the emotionless way she asks makes it unusual, and somewhat disturbing. The knights are completely demystified and shown not as legend, but men, and men which lack something: is it love, God, a reason to live now that their search is over (and was unsuccessful)? Maybe all that, maybe more, but the fact is that eventually it will explode, and Camelot's decadence will be inevitable. Bresson's ultra-naturalistic and anti-conventional style makes it's images very powerful. The best are a tournament when he applies one of his principles "to give something for the ears and then for the eyes, never both", increasing the effect of the combats, which would have seem even foolish otherwise, and the ending, which is a very shocking one. Because of all that, Lancelot of the Lake is one of the finest films of one of cinema's greatest masters. Mainstream audiences will probably hate it, but one who's eager to see another side of a very known story should see it.

PS: I'm quoting out of memory, so it maybe not be the exacts Bresson's words

Lancelot du Lac (1974)

It is my contention that Robert Bresson's films are not so much films as they are philosophical essays stroked out on celluloid. They are often contemplations on the soul, usually of its destruction. His films are highly stylised in that they are without any style at all. Many of the actors he used acted in the film in which he cast them. He left out what would usually be considered key moments in a plot, making them difficult, but always fascinating. He never failed in what he tried to achieve, though that doesn't mean they were all always really that enjoyable, especially If you approach them as you would any other movie anyway. They are an acquired taste, and frankly require a certain degree of intelligence. I don't say that to sound pretentious, but to merely point out the observation that to have to think about something requires a certain amount of intelligence.

In 1974 Bresson applied his philosophic sensibilities to a legendary tale. He took the famous Arthurian story of Lancelot's affair with Arthur's Queen, Guinevere. Of course, everyone knows the story, so I will not bother describing the plot so much as examine how it's executed. Bresson stripped all the lustre and romanticism from the story. Instead, he chose to emphasize the grime and cold-bloodedness. In the opening shot, he has Knights battle each other, hammering their swords against their armour until they strike flesh. Blood pours out like water from a faucet. It is a poignant gesture that Bresson begins (and ends) his film with inexplicable and horrific violence.

Bresson turns ups the sounds of metal scraping on metal as the knights move around. He makes them look almost silly in their shuffling motions. Their pride is a foolish one. Instead of noblemen, Bresson shows them as petty and manipulative. They conspire to kill Lancelot, not by challenging him to a duel, but by waiting for him to exit the Queen's room where, armed or not, they declare he'll be too caught off guard to put up a fight before he is run through. Even Lancelot is ashamed, for he has returned from his quest to find the Holy Grail a failure. His trespasses with the Queen, even if it is true love, are doomed to tragedy because of foolhardy nobility.

Though parts of the film take place in a castle, Bresson wastes no time with an establishing or grandiose shots. Even in battle, most scenes are reactionary. He makes it a point to show the knights lifting and closing their face masks as they speak with one another or prepare for war. The repetition somehow acts almost as satire. I think Bresson recognized the asinine behind the legendry.

Lancelot du Lac was one of Bresson's most abstract films. It was in many ways an exercise in deconstruction that would have done Derrida proud. It obviously must has been quite influential. When I first saw Terrence Malick's The New World, I instantly thought that it must have been influenced in some way by Lancelot du Lac. That film stripped the story of Pocahontas and John Smith to its bare essentials - albeit not to the extent that Bresson goes, but still. There is one scene in The New World which reminded me very much of Lancelot du Lac, the one in which Smith wades through a swampy forest in his clunky armour only to be bested by the nearly nude naturals. He looks foolish trying to navigate and murky forest in such clunky attire. Now whether or not the film was an inspiration or if Malick has even seen it, I cannot confirm (though I suspect he has - his knowledge of cinema is extensive) Bresson often shows his knights gallivanting in the forest, wearing armour as a formal attire in situations that do not require it, other than to shout, "look at me, I am a Knight of King Arthur's Court!." Sure they offer some added protection, but they are still no match for death - as Bresson points out by showing us at the beginning and at the end (purposefully placed no doubt) how blood finds ways to spray from the openings and holes in plates of armour. Their armour is simply a token of their supremacy over the common man.

Lancelot du Lac is Bresson's way of showing us the grandiose self-importance the Knights of King Arthur's Court presented upon themselves, and continues to be placed upon them by fairytale romanticism. When Lancelot asks for help to overcome his temptations from God, it is not for holiness or piety, but his own mortal self-preservation. Their quest for the Grail and their military victories have granted them fame and reputation. They squander what gifts they have been given to defeat one another. On one side, for the sake of Arthur against Lancelot; on the other for the sake of the Queen and Lancelot against everyone else. In the end when Lancelot concedes and returns the Queen to Arthur in exchange for her pardon, a group of Knights turn against the King at his moment of weakness. Now then Lancelot and his men return to fight for Arthur against the usurpers. It is a cycle of battle, or to be more to the point, competition. Throughout the film the Knights are preoccupied with competition in some form - jousting, declaring duels, chess, the love of the queen. They feast on an appetite of destruction.

All is done in the name of Christianity in Arthur's court, but Bresson leaves much of that to subtlety. One shot of Lancelot is framed in the foreground by a crucifix, out of focus on purpose. Guinevere responds that the Knights were looking for God as a trophy - yet God is not a trophy. The Knights have simply taken Christianity as their flag in a battle for self-supremacy, not any theological quest.

A lot of people are complaining about this film and for good reason. It's a difficult film but a worthwhile one at that. Bresson's Camelot is a horrible place to be. Arthur and his knights are unintentionally making everyone around them suffer by their visions of what the great society Camelot should be. The emotion is drained because they have killed for so long, compromising and losing sight of their initial quest. The movie is by far the most thematically challenging and different of the King Arthur operas, but it's definitely better than the recent film and on par with John Boorman's Sexcalibur. This film should be seen only by those with a true appreciation for art films and not those seeking to be entertained, they are two different mediums.

After having seen hundreds of kitsch-crap films while working in a stock footage company, I still feel justified in declaring Lancelot du Lac the single worst film I've ever seen. I dare any critic to watch it and still maintain their "If it's French it must be good" stance.

The "plot" (stretch your imagination here) involves a power struggle between Round Table knights Lancelot, Gawain and Mordred in the dark, hopeless days before the Holy Grail is found.

Where to start? The acting is braindead, the script dull and incomprehensible, the editing nonexistent, the cinematography dingy and flat. There's a difference between "minimalism" and just plain careless filmmaking. Establishing shots drag on for ten seconds; scenes are interrupted with pointless cutaways; the same transition shot of horses riding through the forest is used 14 times; character motivations are lost through confusing scene transitions and muddy dialogue. Even the jousting tournament scene is dull: the cinematographer repeatedly focuses on running horse legs, not caring to show us who's actually riding the #@%$ horse!! The "actors" seem to have been dragged out of bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night and told they were going to be in a film.

Lancelot du Lac isn't even amusingly bad, just painfully, painfully dull. As John Cleese would say, what a waste of human life.