Lancelot of the Lake

After having seen hundreds of kitsch-crap films while working in a stock footage company, I still feel justified in declaring Lancelot du Lac the single worst film I've ever seen. I dare any critic to watch it and still maintain their "If it's French it must be good" stance.

The "plot" (stretch your imagination here) involves a power struggle between Round Table knights Lancelot, Gawain and Mordred in the dark, hopeless days before the Holy Grail is found.

Where to start? The acting is braindead, the script dull and incomprehensible, the editing nonexistent, the cinematography dingy and flat. There's a difference between "minimalism" and just plain careless filmmaking. Establishing shots drag on for ten seconds; scenes are interrupted with pointless cutaways; the same transition shot of horses riding through the forest is used 14 times; character motivations are lost through confusing scene transitions and muddy dialogue. Even the jousting tournament scene is dull: the cinematographer repeatedly focuses on running horse legs, not caring to show us who's actually riding the #@%$ horse!! The "actors" seem to have been dragged out of bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night and told they were going to be in a film.

Lancelot du Lac isn't even amusingly bad, just painfully, painfully dull. As John Cleese would say, what a waste of human life.

I'll start my comment with my comments on the other comments :) The exaggerated blood spurts is of course ridiculous and I believe was meant to be. This is also what Monty Python parodied, not the other way around as others had put it. And why else would they not? It's transcendental! The actors looking like rockstars ... good thing it's vogue in the 70s and besides, the setting is the medieval period its fitting. What do they want, spikes and high crew cuts? And the complaint about the expressionless actors, I rather think that it is because the drama is in the emotions that the viewers feel for the characters.

And now for my film comments... maybe because I have such a penchant for the medieval period and familiar with the legend that I wholly liked it. And sure I found many symbolisms which I did not understand but I certainly did see the beauty. I loved the way it was filmed, the costumes, the speech, the passion... yes passion! For instance, Gawain/Guvain's devotion to Lancelot and yet remained loyal to the king. I didn't mind the repetitious cuts/editing style as I'm sure they have meanings for which I am still yet to uncover. And gladly I will.

The only complaint I have (yes, I also have a nit-pick but it's minimal *wink*) Lancelot looked a lot older than King Arthur. He's supposed to be this strapping man! Anyway, that is easy to get over with. This film is certainly something that I would love to watch again. Read PTA-fan's review and maybe you'll learn something you may have failed to see. I know I did.

A lot of people are complaining about this film and for good reason. It's a difficult film but a worthwhile one at that. Bresson's Camelot is a horrible place to be. Arthur and his knights are unintentionally making everyone around them suffer by their visions of what the great society Camelot should be. The emotion is drained because they have killed for so long, compromising and losing sight of their initial quest. The movie is by far the most thematically challenging and different of the King Arthur operas, but it's definitely better than the recent film and on par with John Boorman's Sexcalibur. This film should be seen only by those with a true appreciation for art films and not those seeking to be entertained, they are two different mediums.

According to George A. Romero, Bresson has made only zombie films, and this one indeed suggests this conclusion. Inspired by Cocteau's Les chevaliers de la table ronde, the director created an absolutely unspectacular, scanty, masterful historical scenery which ultimately destroys all romantic imaginations of knighthood. Lancelot and his colleagues strut around stoically, preferably full-armoured, with a lowered visor and even when the helmet's off, there's not one emotion to read on the knights' faces which blink towards a world that is doomed to failure, a world that has lost its pivot because of guilt, doubts, a growing consciousness which calls itself into question. There's only one long shot in the entire film which stimulates the viewer in thinking beyond the pictures into a spiritual dimension which always has been Bresson's intention and theme. Lancelot is an impressively consequent, utterly economically told film that raises the big questions of life, love, faith, loyalty, honour and treason.

A director that intentionally drains all the emotion and any interpersonal energies from his characters must have a point, but I can't get it. It does not increase the mythic quality that Pasolini was able to capture, nor does it provide us with abstract ideas and messages that are somehow universal. This movie is just plain silly. The gore at the beginning without faces or personality and the very unrealistic constant clinking of the men never taking off their armor suggests that the whole "message" here is about the ridiculousness of war. It certainly is not a love story. Why then does the plot revolve so much around the dry and empty encounters between Guinevere and Lancelot? Everyone is insignificant and vacant. Why would Bresson possibly believe the audience would want to sit through such pointlessness? This is almost the polar opposite of "Diary of a Country Priest," which was deeply compassionate and expressive.