| not the best |
|
| written by AByrd1 |
December 27, 2005 - 8:10 PM PST |
|
1 out of 3 members found this review helpful
|
| In the first five minutes of the film, cartoonish blood comes pouring out of jugulars, groins, bellies, you name it. This should be enough to keep anyone from expecting realistic acting, Merchant-Ivoryesque "authenticity" in the sets, etc. But the movie is a little disappointing even if stylization is your thing: it's not strange enough to be as strange as it is, if that makes any sense. It's not clear what Bresson wanted here -- it's hard to believe that he either loved or hated the whole Arthurian thing enough to make a movie about it. |
| Disappointing |
|
| written by RAH49 |
June 22, 2005 - 11:19 AM PDT |
|
1 out of 3 members found this review helpful
|
After viewing Bresson's "A Man Escaped," I had very high hopes for this film. Utterly dashed.
The acting is wooden beyond belief. The characters ponder their various fates in would-be Bergmanesque solemnity, but the dialog doesn't hold up, wobbling clumsily between the portentous and the pompous and back again without mercy or respite.
The director's sense of history is unintentionally hilarious. There is always a tension in dealing with Arthurian material: Do you set the myth in its alleged "historic" setting (i.e., early 6th-century)? Or do you set it in the era in which the stories flourished (12th- and 13th-century)? Or do you create your own reality? This production abuses the question by setting the whole affair in a tent city which has all the historical persuasiveness of Midwestern Renaissance Faire, without the soothing distraction of plentiful beer.
And then there is the tournament scene, where for reasons known only to Bresson we watch Lancelot's horse's legs for joust after joust, while hearing the crash of steel and wood off camera. Was the production budget really that pinched?
And the armor. Why do directors feel compelled to have these fellows clank around in their armor all day long? Is it supposed to say something about the restricted nature of their lives or souls? This movie shares this irksome absurdity with "Excalibur." Both directors should have consulted Mark Twain's "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" on the joys of wearing steel armor before indulging in such pretentious silliness.
I have to admit I couldn't make it through the movie. I watched as much of it as I did out of a perverse fascination with the idea that the director who filmed the radiant escape movie could make such a bomb.
I did wake up, however, in time to watch Arthur and Mordred cancel each other. And a good day's work it was. |
|
|
Your cart
© 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. Portions of content provided by All Movie Guide®,
a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.