Knight Errant

By Gerald Clarke

PERCEVAL

Directed by Eric Rohmer

Adapted from Chretien de Troyes

There has never been a movie director more doggedly intellectual than Eric Rohmer. When characters get between his sheets, they grapple not with each other but with the conundrums of Pascal or the doctrines of Jansenism; principle and passion clash in all-night discussions. But Rohmer is also one of the wittiest of directors and, defying all the usual rules of film making, he has turned out some of the most delightful movies of the past decade: My Night at Maud's, Claire's Knee, Chloe in the Afternoon and The Marquise of O... In Perceval he goes one fatal step further; it is not merely an intellectual movie. It is the essence of an intellectual movie and boring beyond all reasonable accounting.

The story is adapted from the narrative of the 12th century French poet Chretien de Troyes, who wrote the first formal version of the Grail legend. Perceval (Fabrice Luchini), a Welsh lad of sublime simplicity, encounters five knights galloping after distressed damsels. At first he takes the warriors for angels, but when he learns they are men like him self, he sets out to find King Arthur, that famous knight maker. Perceval's mother had told him to help ladies in trouble but to expect no more than a kiss, and perhaps a ring, in return. He misreads her advice and, finding a lady lounging happily in her tent, yanks off her ring and steals seven kisses.

Eventually he finds Arthur (Marc Eyraud), who is in a sulk because the Red Knight is trying to seize his land. Perceval puts a spear through the fellow's eye, and Arthur dubs him the new Red Knight. Various adventures follow, with Perceval rescuing maidens, downing oppressors and entering enchanted houses. Invariably, however, he misconstrues good advice. When he does see the Holy Grail, he does not recognize it or ask about it, having been told by a wise old man that a good knight keeps his mouth shut. For that error he is cursed. He has become a knight, but lost his faith.

Rohmer's telling of the story is highly stylized. The actors speak in rhyming verse, and much of the narrative is provided by a chorus, playing medieval instruments. Luchini is more a suggestion of a knight than a knight himself. With a receding chin, concave chest, and dangling, half-open mouth, he looks as if he would be afraid to kill a mouse with a trap, much less joust with a man in armor. The sets are also symbolic, rather than realistic--sculptured trees, cardboard castles, painted skies--and they have the strange beauty of a Dali painting. But the beauty quickly palls. Rohmer's films have always been an acquired and sometimes peculiar taste, like snails. Even for diehards, however, Perceval may seem, alas, more like tripe.

Gerald Clarke

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