While it seems currently out of fashion, at one point there was a cinema that was perfectly content to be "art" (for lack of a better term) rather than emphasizing any story or character development so it seems a bit unfair to try to rate those against their more conventional peers, and Tristan et Iseult certainly falls into the former category. Perfectly embodying that late '60s, early '70s avant garde aesthetic, director Yvan Lagrange channels Andy Warhol via Derek Jarman in this telling of the story of medieval star-crossed lovers.
Yet this is not the story ol' Dick Wagner would recognize although the operatic layer is certainly there, however musically it has more in common with a solo album from a drugged out kraut rock artist produced by the ABBA team than anything out of Bayreuth. Comprised primarily of Deeply Meaningful scenes where the actors stare Deeply Meaningfully into the camera or off into space the pacing is slow, despite being just over an hour long. I suspect even Andy would have told Lagrange to pick up the tempo but, of course, that would have sucked the Deep Meanings out of his creation.
One could overlook the pretentiousness as that's expected in films like this but what must be acknowledged are the comically inept 'fight' scenes between the various knights who bare a shocking resemblance to The Knights Who Say Ni. The sword play looks like it was choreographed by 5 year olds on a sugar bender. I mean, I do get it, yes, it was all bloody butchery in the bad old days but be warned, you're going to be subjected to animal gore. A lot of animal gore. It seems impossible that the Pythons did not see this at one point and use it as inspiration for The Holy Grail.
