LANCELOT OF THE LAKE Movie Review

Lancelot du Lac
The Grail
Le Graal

A masterpiece. France's Robert Bresson dreamed of making a film about the King Arthur legend for more than 20 years. By the time he was able to film his Lancelot of the Lake (Lancelot du Lac) in 1974, Bresson's style had been honed to the point where he was able to tell his story with images that are reduced to their absolute bare essentials. Each moment in the film is an evocation rather than a recreation, and the result is a dreamlike vision that embeds itself in the mind with a force most conventional movies never approach. We sometimes see only portions of a particular action, accompanied by off-screen sounds (as in the astounding jousting tournament), but each moment seems to capture the essence of Bresson's evocation of the failure of Arthur's mission, and the subsequent death of the age of chivalry. Lancelot of the Lake is so stylized and distilled that it can draw hoots of derision from audiences unwilling to go along with its uncompromising, minimalist vision. For the adventurous, there's absolutely nothing else like it; Lancelot of the Lake becomes the legend in our memories. (Accurate reproduction of the film's color cinematography and dark imagery is essential for the film to work; with luck, new DVD or laserdisc transfers from original print materials will become available.)

NEXT STOP … Diary of a Country Priest, Pickpocket, Day of Wrath

1974 85m/C FR Luc Simon, Laura Duke Condominas, Vladimir Antolek-Oresek, Humbert Balsan, Patrick Bernard, Arthur De Montalembert; D: Robert Bresson; W: Robert Bresson; C: Pasquale De Santis; M: Philippe Sarde. VHS NYF