Lancelot of the Lake

I am always surprised at how much I enjoy Robert Bresson's films. He is usually lumped in with the grand old masters of slow narrative (Tarkovsky, Mizoguchi, Antonioni), but his visual composition isn't even as flashy as that. His is the point and shoot style of directing, and his actors could just as well be puppets that talk. On the surface, there is really nothing to draw my attention or admiration.

Yet I find every second of his films compelling. This one, probably my least favorite of the few I have seen by him, is an utter masterpiece nonetheless. Never before (with the possible exception of Bergman) have I experience such a foreboding atmosphere of despair in a film. The actions of the characters seem perfunctory as the film grinds them down with their fate in the story, as there is nothing they can do. It takes place at the end of King Arthur's reign (itself a beautiful portrait of despair in all its forms). Lancelot and Guinivere's transgressions have brought ruin on the kingdom, and it is clear that God has abandoned them. Arthur himself is pointedly absent from the film. The final scenes are of an intense and haunting beauty, as the horses ridden into battle against Mordred return, one by one, riderless. The last shot shows Lancelot alone and dying. He carries himself to the pile of bodies not too far away, so that he may die near his brothers of the Round Table.