PERCEVAL (Eric Rohmer, 1978)

Perceval le Gallois is Eric Rohmer’s odd-film-out—one of his best, surely, but not in the mold of his contemporary romantic comedies. After all, it’s from a 12th-century work by Chrétien de Troyes! Highly stylized and studio-shot, with minimalist sets and gorgeous color (cinematographer, Nestor Almendros), the film purports to show the Middle Ages as it appeared to those living then—whatever that means. It’s a spare film of poignant innocence, the poignancy lying in the loss of innocence knowledge of which we bring to the film. Paradoxically (and brilliantly), Perceval le Gallois immerses us in its distancing, giving us a double sense of time correlative to innocence and the loss of which we are selfconscious. Some of us may even feel we have “fallen” into a better place.
     Rohmer’s theme, the arrogance of entitlement or of the sense thereof, sounds a cautionary note for the Western world of Rohmer’s day. Perceval, the young Welshman with “noble bearing,” is an ugly little snot who takes what he wants. (The peasants working his mother’s land “shook with fear” at his presence.) When he crosses a tent occupied with an unattended damsel, he steals a kiss and her ring. He demands of poor King Arthur that he be made a knight—and not just any knight but the Red Knight, whose armor he covets, and whom he kills with a spear through the eye just to make that armor his own. Perceval’s (itself half-hearted) attachment to his mother underscores his incapacity to feel for anyone else.
     The presentation is complex. Quartets of singers tell the story that we watch unfold, and Perceval’s own monologues assist the story’s onward course. One might say that Perceval’s tale of knightly accomplishment is overtold, reinforcing the stress of his sense of entitlement.