A stylized, colorful rendition of Arthurian legends regarding Perceval, based on the incomplete works from the 12th century, this film is well adapted from its source material, or the small fraction of it I am familiar with. It is stilted, removed, and poetic, lyrical and pious. It captures the outsized quality of the tales, which have no room for realism or nuanced characterization. What you find instead is a mythic narrative, a metaphorical representation of ideals and long forgotten social rules.

In order to achieve some sense of 900 year old style, Rohmer uses lines from the actual works not quite as dialogue, but as narration from the lips of the characters, who are often telling you what they are…

Rohmer sets an unfinished epic in an unfinished world: all flat backgrounds, black-box costumes and signifier props. Yet this closed set and all its circular wandering produce a funny, bittersweet, analytical critique of its source literature and the mythic history embedded in it. His characters clearly walk in circles in the small set, but his interacting choruses routinely refuse to sing about what has already happened, asking in meter what would be the point, while actions are amusingly posed for an eventual tapestry than actually performed. Rohmer pokes fun at the chivalric purity that drives Perceval, portraying his unthinking obedience to what he is taught as vaguely sheeplike, the stubborn single-mindedness of a fool.

Rohmer's characters often destroy their desires…

Rohmer's Perceval remains a singular vision, a film which doesn't ask to be liked or enjoyed, simply to be experienced. By adapting ancient text in the most literal way imaginable, Rohmer seeks to demonstrate how utterly abstract storytelling used to be. Characters narrate their own actions, the structure is both perplexing and enigmatic and the performances emphasise exaggerated, poetic movements. The film feels like a celebration of medieval melodrama, one which subtly satirises it's subjects whilst treating them with the utmost sense of dignity.
The mise-en-scene is starkly theatrical, Rohmer making no attempt to hide the fact that his characters are roaming around bare, expressionistic sets (the gorgeous use of colour here makes these elements seem even more surreal). All…

I have no idea why I expected this to simply be a Rohmer with Arthurian characters. This movie is one of the most bizarrely appealing and compelling films ever made, a perfect rendition of the character that is simultaneously adult and childlike, mythic and psychologically penetrating. The style - a sort of theatrical medieval musical - never feels gimmicky or gratuitous, and gives stark clarity to the allegorical aspects of the legend. The alien sets are full of violent looking metal constructions and simple, obviously artificial colors and backdrops, which make the movie feel incredibly vast as it moves from idea to idea, traversing terrain in out mind as it cannot on screen. This little theatre piece-turned-epic has one definite…