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PERCEVAL LE GALLOIS
1978
Director
Éric Rohmer
Starring
Fabrice Luchini
André Dussollier
Arielle Dombasle
Runtime
140 minutes
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Filled with wonder at the sight of shining armor belonging to a group of knights he has mistaken for angels, naive Perceval immediately solves the mystery of his destiny: he will become one of King Arthur’s knights. Valiant astride his horse, he rides from one ordeal to another, obsessed with a dream as Éric Rohmer goes in search of directing’s Holy Grail.
“All hail PERCEVAL LE GALLOIS, Eric Rohmer’s masterpiece maudit, undoubtedly one of the most original, daring, and meticulously devised films in all of cinema. […] Criminally underrated or simply unknown by the masses and many a Rohmerian, though of cherished cult status for a fair number of cinephiles (and academics), Rohmer’s near-literal adaptation of Chrétien de Troye’s incomplete 12th century Arthurian epic poem has induced as much awe as it has consternation, and misguidedly, a fair dose of derision. Admirers and dissenters alike have deemed PERCEVAL a variation of any of the following: naïve, primitive, childlike, theatrical, stylized and stilted, fantastical, baffling, old-fashioned, anti-cinematic, postmodern, literary, and punishing – all of which resound with an air of casual insouciance considering the film’s creator was a man whose extreme erudition ensured enlightened exactitude. Rohmer’s interest in the creation of original forms (forma = Latin for beauty), like those he situated at the hearts of both Mozart and Beethoven in his delicately astute treatise, “De Mozart en Beethoven” – an intimate, semi-scholarly musicology informed by his love of the two titular composers, his approach to filmmaking, and his own predilection for free-floating ideas and essences – is not so much a pastiche panoply in PERCEVAL; rather, it is a seemingly insuperable double translation, that of the text itself and of its modern translation into cinema form.” – Andrea Picard
“All hail PERCEVAL LE GALLOIS, Eric Rohmer’s masterpiece maudit, undoubtedly one of the most original, daring, and meticulously devised films in all of cinema. […] Criminally underrated or simply unknown by the masses and many a Rohmerian, though of cherished cult status for a fair number of cinephiles (and academics), Rohmer’s near-literal adaptation of Chrétien de Troye’s incomplete 12th century Arthurian epic poem has induced as much awe as it has consternation, and misguidedly, a fair dose of derision. Admirers and dissenters alike have deemed PERCEVAL a variation of any of the following: naïve, primitive, childlike, theatrical, stylized and stilted, fantastical, baffling, old-fashioned, anti-cinematic, postmodern, literary, and punishing – all of which resound with an air of casual insouciance considering the film’s creator was a man whose extreme erudition ensured enlightened exactitude. Rohmer’s interest in the creation of original forms (forma = Latin for beauty), like those he situated at the hearts of both Mozart and Beethoven in his delicately astute treatise, “De Mozart en Beethoven” – an intimate, semi-scholarly musicology informed by his love of the two titular composers, his approach to filmmaking, and his own predilection for free-floating ideas and essences – is not so much a pastiche panoply in PERCEVAL; rather, it is a seemingly insuperable double translation, that of the text itself and of its modern translation into cinema form.” – Andrea Picard