Perceval

Rating:
Summary: What happened to the ending?
Review: This is an interesting movie to watch, as it reminds the viewer of watching a play. The majority of the lines were delivered by being sung in the third person. The backgrounds definitely made me think of plays I have seen in that they were simple, very stylistic, and yet served well to convey a sense of place. The fight scenes were not very realistic, but I think that Rohmer wanted to downplay the actual fighting that takes place in the story. For the most part this movie followed Chretien de Troyes' vision well, but ended abruptly. In the actual stories Gawain has several more adventures, to include an encounter with an evil damsel. Perceval didn't come across as a very likeable character to me because he seemed too wide-eyed and simple. I did enjoy the portrayal of Gawain, however. One little complaint that I have is that I found it distracting when you could see shadows cast on the background walls. Overall, it was fun to watch, but if you don't like plays or musicals, I wouldn't recommend this.

Rating:
Summary: Psychadelic and gothic dreamyness prevails
Review: Combine some modern - looking sculpted metal stage props with neon sand, then add rich gothic singing, and you have Perceval.

At first, I sat watching the movie thinking "ok what did I get myself into?" because the singing irked me at first. Then I got used to it, and it became a chief and quite ingenious form of communication between the narrator, the actors, and the audience. Knowing a little bit of French eases the rapidity of a foreign language versus flashy subtitles.

The story fails to get boring at any point, and the film is upbeat and interesting from every angle you look at it.

Perceval is a lovable film with romance, duty, and gothic mysticism interwoven throughout. There's a small bit of nudity, but nothing offensively portrayed in a hardcore fashion. It's not your typical independent French film!

Rating:
Summary: Psychadelic and gothic dreamyness prevails
Review: Combine some modern - looking sculpted metal stage props with neon sand, then add rich gothic singing, and you have Perceval.

At first, I sat watching the movie thinking "ok what did I get myself into?" because the singing irked me at first. Then I got used to it, and it became a chief and quite ingenious form of communication between the narrator, the actors, and the audience. Knowing a little bit of French eases the rapidity of a foreign language versus flashy subtitles.

The story fails to get boring at any point, and the film is upbeat and interesting from every angle you look at it.

Perceval is a lovable film with romance, duty, and gothic mysticism interwoven throughout. There's a small bit of nudity, but nothing offensively portrayed in a hardcore fashion. It's not your typical independent French film!

Rating:
Summary: Exquisite
Review: Eric Rohmer's "Perceval" is one of the most stunning films I've ever seen. Based on Chretien de Troyes' unfinished story, this movie is amazing. The scenery and acting are exquisitely stylized, and the story is presented in a blend of medieval-style song, dialog, and narration--all in Old French. It's like watching a medieval pageant come to life. Rohmer's adaptation is remarkably faithful to Chretien's story. I particularly adored the film's depiction of the episode of Gawain and the Damsel of the Small Sleeves--the girl in the film is splendid. Fabrice Luchini portrays Perceval perfectly--naive, callow, youthfully self-centered and determined. I can't praise this film highly enough. If you love the romances of Chretien, this is a must-see. I wish Rohmer had done "The Knight of the Cart," too...

Rating:
Summary: "I want your love as a reward."
Review: Eric Rohmer's film "Perceval" is the story of the Arthurian knight. The script is based on the 12th century novel by Chretien de Troyes. The role of Perceval is played by a very young Fabrice Luchini. When the film begins, Perceval is a callow youth who lives with his widowed mother. He encounters some knights, and he's so fascinated by them, he decides he wants to be one too. This film retells Perceval's adventures.

The sets are very amateurish--no doubt deliberately so. The castles appear to be made of cardboard and many of the distant scenes are paintings. The sets are more fitting for a stage play. Throughout the film, musicians play medieval-style instruments, and honestly, this was one of the best parts of the film. The jousting scenes are ridiculously simple, and the sword fights--awful.

Some of the characters are just downright bizarre. One actress looks as though she has a starched octopus stuck on her head, and one of the musicians looks like a deranged jester. Fabrice Luchini is one of my favourite actors, but his talent did not shine through in this role. Perceval is selfish and shallow. Another knight says of Perceval "this lad hasn't much wit, but he's well born." And that sums it up. Rohmer's Perceval is not noble or good--in fact, he's a bit thick. The portrayal of King Arthur is no better. The film seemed to make an effort when portraying courtly love, and that is to be commended.

One of the most annoying things about this film is the manner in which characters stop talking to each other and begin to narrate in the third person. For example, a damsel spoke directly to Perceval and then faced the camera and announced "she led him to her room." This sort of shift to third person was distracting and frequent.

Eric Rohmer is one of my favourite directors. His films are intellectual feasts, yet this film did absolutely nothing for me--displacedhuman

Rating:
Summary: CHRETIEN DE TROYES' ORIGINAL GRAIL FANTASY
Review: Eric Rohmer's French adaptation of Chretien de Troyes' 12th-century story of the Grail Quest is a unique, highly experimental film that alternates between hypnotic allure and apathetic disenchantment. Filmed on blatantly artificial but picturesque sets more reminiscent of a play than a film, Rohmer's episodic tale of the naive Perceval and his quest for knightly glory never quite lives up to its literary pedigree. The cast, which comes complete with a prominent chorus, is for the most part excellent, though Fabrici Luchini as the title character is outdone by Pascale de Boysson's much smaller but more convincing performance as Gauvin. The biggest problem with Rohmer's film is that he and Luchini set Perceval up less as the raw, untutored but essentially noble youth of Chretien's book than as a truly stupid, selfish boor, thereby undercutting much of the story's age-old appeal. Rohmer's Perceval is too callow to engender much viewer sympathy, and only begins to show signs of growth near the very end of the film, when it's too late (for the viewer, anyway!). Moreover, while the surreal set design is usually one of the movie's assets, the lack of realism definitely affects the several fight scenes, which fail to ever be more than cartoonish. Some may also resent the movie's lack of a real ending, but in fact that's part of the original story's enigmatic charm: Chretien didn't finish the book, so Rohmer is just beeing faithful to his source material. Overall, Rohmer's Perceval is an earnest, largely admirable production that gets high marks for sincerity and originality. But the movie's inability to capture the original book's character and spirit is an undeniably major flaw. Because of this drawback, and the film's sheer unconventionality, I only recommend Perceval to die-hard Arthurian fans (like myself). Others may be better off with the likes of Excalibur and Knights of the Round Table, more conventional American films that are both more accessible than Rohmer's piece and moreover provide versions of Perceval more in line with this reviewer's opinion of how the character should be realized.

Rating:
Summary: Ian Myles Slater on: A Wonderful Production
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful film for medieval music lovers
Review: Interesting everyone here seems either to hate this film or love it. Little in between. I found the "fake" sets fascinating because they were very effectively evocative of medieval manuscript illuminations -- in fact the whole film seemed like a manuscript motion. The way the musicians stand in consort, the way the ladies hold their hands, etc., resemble countless examples seen in paintings and manuscripts of the 15th century and before. The music is unfailingly authentic: any that is not sung to actual 13th century French melodies is stylistically perfect. Then there are the occasional snippets of actual well-known pieces, such as the lament of Richard the Lion-Hearted that appears briefly in purely instrumental form. I recommend it, but if you would tend to be turned off by the things the negative reviewers harp on, see something else. The things people have written here are factually correct; whether it strikes you as fabulous or unconscionable will depend entirely on your personal sensibilities and taste.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful film for medieval music lovers
Review: Interesting everyone here seems either to hate this film or love it. Little in between. I found the "fake" sets fascinating because they were very effectively evocative of medieval manuscript illuminations -- in fact the whole film seemed like a manuscript motion. The way the musicians stand in consort, the way the ladies hold their hands, etc., resemble countless examples seen in paintings and manuscripts of the 15th century and before. The music is unfailingly authentic: any that is not sung to actual 13th century French melodies is stylistically perfect. Then there are the occasional snippets of actual well-known pieces, such as the lament of Richard the Lion-Hearted that appears briefly in purely instrumental form. I recommend it, but if you would tend to be turned off by the things the negative reviewers harp on, see something else. The things people have written here are factually correct; whether it strikes you as fabulous or unconscionable will depend entirely on your personal sensibilities and taste.

Rating:
Summary: Not your typical Rohmer
Review: This movie is extremely stylized and not at all like Rohmer's other films. I'm a big Rohmer fan and was really disappointed by it. It is spoken in the original (?) dialogue of the Perceval story and is filmed entirely on intentionally fake-looking sets. You'll only like this movie if if you're actually interested in seeing a theatrical version of Perceval.