Lancelot du lac
(1974)
Gee, whiz--I was already thinking it might be fun to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail the same weekend as this, even before a knight gets his head lopped off and blood spurts from his empty neck in the opening scene. The stuff the Python boys directly ripped off is limited mostly to the sanguinary opening and close, but the whole thing was clearly fresh in their minds when they took on Arthurian legend a year later. It never occurred to me before, but the oddest omission from MP&tHG is the central adultery, which you'd think they'd have loved cheesing up. Or maybe they just thought they couldn't out-fromage M. Bresson. Luc Simon and Laura Duke Condominas are plenty pretty as Lance and Guinevere, but while they talk a lot about how hot they are for each other, they generate zero heat and seem in fact more the stereotypical French existentialist philosophers than the stereotypical French tourtereaux.Apart from that, an interesting and very strange film. Bresson is far more interested in legs--human and equine--than in faces. There must be a reason, but I'm damned if I can imagine what. Another unusual touch is his insistence on the practical awkwardness of armor: every knight clinks when he walks.
1 comment:
You nailed it: the problem with this flick is that Lance and Guin are cast as existentialist philosophers. God, that is PERFECT. Too bad, because you are also right that they are sooooo pretty. Why can't anybody get this story right? What we need is steam and all anyone gives us is pretty and courtly. The problem with the two of them was that they couldn't keep their hands off each other! Let's see that.
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