[Throughout February and March, Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox will be presenting a retrospective of French master Robert Bresson's films entitled The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson. Film blogger Corey Atad has provided a summary of the program over at Dork Shelf. Lancelot du Lac will be screening once more on Tuesday, March 6th.]

Lancelot du Lac was a major passion project for Robert Bresson that took him several years to eventually make. However, it isn’t the sort of grand, large-scale epic that one might imagine given both the great importance placed on it by its creator and, especially, the mythic nature of the story material. After all, the tales of King Arthur, Sir Lancelot du Lac and the other Knights of the Round Table make up some of the most oft-told tales in history, usually illustrated with magnificent portrayals of castles, battles and adventures. Yet Bresson offers a very different take; one very much exemplifying his strict ideas regarding control, minimalism and muted expression in the cinematic medium.

The film focuses on a specific part of the Arthur story: Lancelot’s return to his king after setting out (and failing) to find the Holy Grail and the tragic collapse of their fellowship that followed. Upon his arrival, Lancelot (Luc Simon) is almost immediately reunited with an unresolved issue: his illicit romance with Queen Guinevere (Laura Duke Condominas), who commands him to maintain his oath of commitment to her while he begs her to release him from it. Meanwhile, tension within the band of remaining knights slowly grows as the insolent Mordred (Patrick Bernhard) challenges Lancelot’s authority and seeks to reveal his betrayal to Arthur (Vladimir Antolek-Oresek).

The use of action (along with the mise-en-scène in general) remains remarkably sparse throughout Lancelot du Lac. Most of the film consists of the knights and Guinevere discussing plot developments rather than enacting them, and often, major events occur off-camera, at times even only revealed afterwards through more dialogue. In his own peculiar way, Bresson directs attention to other elements beyond the narrative, a significant one being the image of the knight figure, which he deconstructs by adopting a very direct, realism-inflected perspective. The clanking and creaking of their suits of armor are a prominent fixture on the carefully arranged soundtrack, and often only the men’s feet and legs are shown in the frame, inverting the popular depiction of the knight as a towering, near-invincible warrior. Physical limitation, vulnerability and mortality are further stressed by the shocking moments of violence that occur – in the handful of battle sequences we are permitted to see, the movements are awkward and strenuous, the gore brutal and confrontational. The film’s key set piece is a jousting tournament in which a recognizable pattern of bagpipe fanfares, flag raisings, deadly charges and audience reactions soon emerges, reducing the duel of horses and lances to a stark yet totally engaging framework of ceremonial procedures and displays of might. Even the image of Guinevere is deconstructed in one scene in which she sheds her dress to bathe, standing naked in a tub while examining her face in a mirror. In this film, the important role costumes and props play in establishing the mythos of a historical period onscreen is made especially clear.

While Bresson goes out of his way to avoid sentimentalizing or embellishing his story material, there still exists a tangible sense of melancholy and impending doom throughout the film – which may very well stem from its basic, stripped-down nature. We watch as Lancelot slowly gives in to his returning passion for Guinevere, Mordred gains more influence in his insurrection against Arthur and Gawain (Humbert Balsan) tries to maintain his loyalty to both the king and Lancelot. While Bresson’s methods firmly prevent the viewer from becoming emotionally involved in these events, the concepts of loss and disillusionment are still quite clearly communicated. The knights’ failure to emerge from their bloody journeys with the Grail is the first of many signs marking their inevitable downfall, which is brought about by the consuming forces of love and jealousy.

Lancelot du Lac can certainly be seen as an intimidating and disorienting piece of cinema. Yet it is also undoubtedly a complexly crafted one, fully representing in all of its subtlety and boldness the discipline that made Bresson such a singular voice in the world of cinema. Without a doubt, this is his Lancelot through and through.