Perceval (1979)

This unique retelling of the tale of Perceval is a great and glorious anomaly in Eric Rohmer's career. Adapted by Rohmer from the 12th-century book by Chrétien de Troyes, it marries ancient theater, medieval painting, music, and prose in a beautifully stylized film narrated in couplets by a chorus of singers and musicians playing traditional instruments, and often by the actors themselves. Fabrice Luchini glows with naïve innocence and wide-eyed wonder as the child-man Perceval, an ignorant but well-meaning young lord raised in isolation, who vows to become a knight after catching his first sight of what he believes to be godly beings. Fumbling through a whole new world of experiences on his quest, he takes his mother's advice to heart all too literally, leading to awkward, humorous, and sometimes tragic consequences, but he reaches the court of King Arthur, where he is knighted and begins his life of chivalry and good deeds. Rohmer builds his world on a huge circular set where bulbous metal sculptures stand in for trees, flat storybook castles look like giant cardboard toys, and the horizon is a backdrop painting. The story denies the expectations of modern storytelling, opting for an episodic series of lessonlike vignettes, culminating in a highly theatrical Passion play (featuring Luchini in the role of Christ). Perceval is a lovely and loving odyssey into the very nature of stories and storytelling, and one of the most original and unique visions in modern cinema. --Sean Axmaker Amazon.com

One of the few really good Arthurian films out there

Faithful to the words and spirit of Chretrien de Troyes.

One of the few really good Arthurian films out there, along with:

John Boorman's "Excalibur"
The recent "Tristan + Isolde"
Cocteau's "The Eternal Return"

I like the French musicians and commentators, who act sometimes as a chorus.


June 13, 2007

As excellent as eccentric

Eric Rohmer is best known for his romantic comedies, but I think it is in his historical movies where he has shown his total command of the medium. 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 was a surprise to find that this movie is really wonderful, and it really 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. December 15, 2006

Either a great satire or a failed experiment

Nothing prepared me for the sheer silliness of Perceval le Gallois. I'm still not entirely sure whether Rohmer is constantly sending up the material and the conventions of 60s-70s modern theatre or not: the stylization is initially interesting, but there's no disguising the fact that Perceval is a moron on a quite titanic scale - indeed, possibly the most idiotic leading character ever seen in any movie (excused by various characters pointing out the Welsh are famous for being strange and/or very stupid!). Yes, I know he's meant to be shallow and selfish, but you have to wonder how this character has managed to get through life when even putting on clothes seems a colossal mental challenge for him. Fabrice Lucini's occasional resemblance to Eric Idle doesn't help matters much either - although even Python was never quite THIS silly. The winter scenes are surprisingly lovely and it has some very effective moments, but... Hmm. September 3, 2006

You had to be there

I can certainly understand why this film leaves some people feeling uncomfortable or confused. It is indeed very untypical of Eric Rohmer, or indeed, of contemporary films in general, where even fantasy is presented so as to seem absolutely 'real'. However, it is absolutely typical of its time, place and subject matter.

I love to watch it because it brings me back so strongly to the later 1960s and 1970s and to the medieval music "scene" of that period. In those days, while Medieval and early Renaissance music was still being "discovered" it was not at all uncommon for performers to dress in period costume and to do elaborate productions to showcase the music of the periods. In New York, I remember attending performances of the Play of Daniel (medieval) and of the Revels of the Queen (Elizabeth I- 16th century) that were done in this manner. I may have attended other, similar, concerts because there seem to be fragments of others floating around in my memory, but these two stand out very clearly. Perceval reminds me so strongly of these experiences! This manner of presenting historical music seems to have slowly gone out of fashion sometime during the 1980s and 1990s and is scarcely found today. Concerts of medieval music are now done by musicians in contemporary 21st century dress (although not always in the formal dress of "classical" music).

So, with this background in mind Rohmer's Perceval is a lovingly done, charming document of a period of musical rediscovery. It's scale is bigger than the production that could have been done in most available theatrical venues but it has the same flavor. However, those who expect to see realistic sets and realistic acting may well feel all at sea. If one regards it as a medieval opera it may lessen the feeling of strangeness.

On its own merits it is beautifully done, with charming landscapes that look as if they have been drawn from 12th century manuscripts, creating a fairytale landscape and atmosphere that is very appropriate to the Arturian story. The music is well done, with well-known medieval melodies adapted to the words of Chretien de Troyes. The story is perfect, showing this, earliest, Perceval as the awkward, overprotected innocent Chretien imagined. Perceval gets it all wrong, due to his lack of social graces and experience of the world. He is the very model of the adolescent, learning the ways of the world through hard experience and making many mistakes as he goes through life. At the non-end ending, he is beginning to enter adulthood, wiser and sadder as he takes responsibility for his own actions and their effects.

The very end of the movie features a play within a play. This inner play is a fragment of a Good Friday trope, such as might have been performed in a monastery setting in the high middle ages. It is itself a very interesting document of the way in which theatre was reborn in Western Europe.

January 29, 2006

Ian Myles Slater on: A Wonderful Production

I originally saw Eric Rohmer's "Perceval" during its American theatrical release, and, on a large screen, the impression of watching an illuminated manuscript come to life was overwhelming. On a small screen, it is still impressive, although a bit more like watching an animation of the beautiful book itself. Not, that, unfortunately, we have such a manuscript of Chretien de Troyes' Old French "Perceval, or, The Story of the Graal," illustrated with anything like such fullness, detail, or precision. But if there is a Platonic archetype of an illuminated manuscript of the poem, I think that Rohmer must have come close to it. That it is a remarkably faithful adaptation of the story, as well as a visually stunning one, accounts for many features of the production.

As director-screenwriter, Rohmer thoroughly integrated the verbal and visual. The characters move through sets which seem to be cut from medieval illustrations, going through stylized movements which show how well or ill-adapted they are to court life. Chorus-like figures from time to time deliver comments, and even address the viewer as if speaking for the author -- a sort of cinematic equivalent of hearing the story from a gifted reader, which was probably how Chretien's public first experienced it. The initial impression of judicious fidelity to the original survived having a translation of the romance open in front of me. There are omissions, but what is on the screen is a plausible interpretation of what is on the page.

Chretien, who died around 1185, left our oldest surviving Arthurian Chivalric Romances (as distinguished from material embedded in pseudo-historical "chronicles," and Welsh stories that are closer to both myth and fairy tales), the rest of which are "Erec and Enide," "Cliges," "Yvain, or the Knight with the Lion," and "Lancelot, or, The Knight of the Cart." They have been translated several times in recent decades, including three "complete" renderings of the romances -- one of them raised the bar by including the non-Arthurian "William of England" to round things out. They were not well-represented in English when Rohmer's film was made; in fact, finding a complete version of "Perceval" was then a little difficult. If you don't know early Arthurian literature -- as opposed to modern versions -- you might try a library (or Amazon) for one of the renderings of Chretien's poem before watching Rohmer's version -- not, however, any of the many *other* versions of the Grail story, especially those featuring Galahad, which in this case will merely be confusing. Nigel Bryant's translation of "Perceval" includes selections from the Old French "Continuations" -- the original turned into a sort of sequel-generating franchise. Bryant has translated two other Old French retellings of Perceval's story, and there are Welsh, Middle High German, Old Norse, and Middle English versions, too.

As we learn in the opening few minutes, the titular hero is the son of widow, brought up by his noble mother in the forest, so that he will be ignorant of the larger world, and not follow his father's fatal career as a knight. Naturally, the first time the youth sees some of King Arthur's knights, he isn't sure what they are, but, once he learns that they aren't angels or devils, wants to be one, anyway, and runs off in search of Arthur. He is also literal-minded to an extreme degree, and soon finds himself in serious trouble, over and over. He is saved mostly by the fact that he is incredibly strong and agile -- living in the wilderness has its advantages. His remarkable good looks -- and here the casting was crucial -- help for a while. So do well-meaning acquaintances, none of whom ever seem to grasp just how *much* of a bumpkin young Perceval is. Having been admonished not to ask questions, which have been making him a nuisance, and revealing his absurd ignorance, he, inevitably, fails to ask one at the Grail Castle, when it was not only appropriate and expected, but actually necessary.

On the whole, the naive Perceval himself comes across less like Tarzan than like George of the Jungle (the animated version), stumbling his way through rescuing damsels and delivering besieged castles -- Chretien seems to have been having fun with what were already cliches, and Rohmer follows him. The film-maker follows the poet in other ways, as well. Rohmer could have stayed with Perceval, and picked up additional material from the post-Chretien Grail-Quest literature. Instead, the film switches for a time to Chretien's secondary hero, Arthur's nephew Gauvain (Gawain), who has accomplished the great feat of conversing with Perceval without getting in a fight with him. Gauvain is the perfect warrior, the perfect courtier, and the perfect lover -- a James Bond in shining armor, and the mirror image of that yokel, Perceval. All of which qualities make him enemies, and he is left in a hostile town, facing a ring of attackers, and armed mainly with a chessboard and large chess-pieces.

"Perceval," to the lasting frustration of readers, and to the great benefit of future generations of storytellers, broke off in mid-adventure for both heroes, for reasons unknown. (The author's death is an obvious explanation, but can't be documented in relation to the poem.) Rohmer does the same, although he includes a (perhaps relevant) "Passion Play" sequence at a point at which Christianity is finally being explained to Perceval. This rounds things off, and suggests a religious meaning to the enigmatic tale.

Sorry folks, that's all there is. January 25, 2005

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