Perceval le Gallois

I admit that I avoided this film for years – probably because most films that have dealt with the Arthurian legend have been pretty bad. So when I finally watch it this year during a retrospective of Rohmer's oeuvre, it was a surprise to find that this movie is really wonderful, and it ought to be better known. Based on Chretien de Troyes medieval book, the film is at times faithful to its literary source and at times very, very eccentric. The style is difficult to explain: the movie wallows in its deliberate artificiality, with its cardboard sets, its wooden acting, and its impromptu (and wonderful) medieval songs. And to top it all, the movie ends with a long rendering of a medieval mass. The movie has a lot of humor actually, which is fairly unusual in Rohmer films, a humor that is very self-conscious and is very 20th century (brechtian distance is a phrase that comes to mind when you watch this film), yet at the same time, the film sometimes looks as a film that could have been made in the 12th century, had the technology been available back then.

I've been on a long Rohmer kick this year, and while I greatly enjoy almost all his work I have to admit there are ways they're all rather alike. With two tremendous exceptions: "The Marquise de O." and "Perceval".

I'm glad I read the earlier-placed IMDb comments, it's very helpful to think of this, as someone suggests, as what Chretien would have produced had he had access to filmmaking rather than narrative poetry. 20th Century narrative manners had not yet developed, and what would be quirky (or downright incompetent) structuring in a late 20th Century film are entirely normal in this 12th Century film.

Eric Rohmer's Perceval Le Gallois transports us back to the Middle Ages, offering a magical vision of the Grail legend in poetry, music, and simple imagery. The film is set in the time of King Arthur and his roundtable. By using costumes based on religious paintings of the Middle Ages, and sets of miniature gold castles and metallic trees, standing silhouetted in front of a painted canvas backdrop, Rohmer creates a sense of childlike wonder. Though based on an unfinished 12th century novel by Chretien de Troyes, the text has been modernized for modern audiences. Female and male choruses sing the connecting narration in traditional rhyming couplets and, with true theatrical flair, actors speak not only their lines but also the thoughts of the characters.

Perceval (played by Fabrice Luchini in a performance I found to be the film's biggest drawback) is a naïve youth who lives with his mother. When he is awed by his first encounter with a knight, he determines to go to King Arthur's court to become a knight. Securing the blessings of the King, he takes lessons in chivalry from the wise Gornemant de Goort (Raoul Billerey). His adventures and a subplot involving Gawain take up the remainder of the film. Perceval first captures the heart of Blanchefeur (Arielle Dombasle), then those of other fair maidens, always remembering the simple tenets taught to him by Gornemant. With a powerful depiction of the passion of Jesus Christ and an episode involving the Bloody Lance and the Holy Grail, Perceval gives us a modern insight into chivalry, and also allows us to glimpse the underlying mystery of life.

This is the movie about the 12th Cenutyr that I've felt is the closest in spirit with what has been written about that time by the people themselves. Far from the ridiculous Hollywood accounts of Robin Hood and Excalibur, this movie is nothing more (and nothing less!) than a filmed chanson de geste. A troop of actors/singers portray the Chrétien de Troyes poem. Half the story is told by speaking, the other half singing. To be able to stick to the text, the characters often talk about themselves in the third person: it is effective in distancing the minstrels from the characters they impersonate. I pity those who see it but can't speak French, as Chrétien's prose has no equal, and the English translation is much more trivial than the other-worldly formulations of the author, faithfully rendered in the film...

I'd advise greatly to read Perceval before watching the movie. Only then can one see how faithful to the spirit of the author Rohmer has managed to be. The original poem already takes place in some sort of magical, fantastic land and time, where everything is made of gold and velvet, and where not everything has to make sense. The Middle Ages literature tradition is very, very big on symbolism, and therefore mustn't be taken too literally. That's what Rohmer does here: castles and trees are symbols.

The last aspect I shall mention is the resemblance between the movie and medieval paintings. Watching he movie, you often feel like watching an animated medieval fresco. Colors, clothing, positions, everything is taken directly from those depictions of medieval life. The scene of the Passion is made of everything good in that movie: very good music, amazing costumes and colors, symbolism, fresco-like positions... This movie is a masterpiece.

Between the movies that integrate the series called Moral Tales and those which integrate the other one called Comedies and Proverbs the French director Eric Rohmer turned himself to historical or legendary themes such as those which inspired La Marquise d'O and this one Perceval Le Gallois. In them all he revealed his genius as a creator of stories and types always in a gentle narrative style not so dramatic but no less psychologically deep. This movie is based on a story by the 12th century novelist Chrétien de Troyes and while respecting the text surrounds it by beautiful images, music and chants also inspired in mediaeval tunes very appropriate for the theme. The sceneries are not real and rather symbolic which underlines the legendary nature of the story of Perceval whose mother, having lost her husband and two sons in combats, has educated him in the ignorance of chivalry. But one day he meets five knights whom he takes for God and four angels. This leads him to go to King Arthur's court to have knighthood conferred upon him. From then on the story develops itself in a series of romantic scenes and episodes of mediaeval taste in the suave usual Rohmer's style. Of course those people who prefer dramatic or violent movies will not appreciate this one. It's however a good movie of its kind.