Film Forum

France, 1974
Written and directed by Robert Bresson
Starring Luc Simon, Laura Duke Condominas, Humbert Balsan, Vladimir Antolek-Oresek
Cinematography by Pasqualino De Santis
In French with English subtitles. 
Approx. 85 min. DCP.

Riderless horses gallop through dark woods, limbs are hacked, the knights have failed to find the Grail, and Lancelot adulterously loves Guinevere, but otherwise this is a ruthless deconstruction of the legend, with a tournament shot almost entirely of horses' legs and flags being raised and lowered, the knights always in full, clanking plate armor, all leading up to a devastating final hecatomb. "The Arthurian legend stripped bare... Stunningly beautiful, mesmerizing, exhausting, uplifting, amazing — all the things you could possibly expect from a masterpiece." – Geoff Brown, Time Out

Presented with support from the George Fasel Memorial Fund for Classic French Cinema.

Restored in 4K by GAUMONT with the support of the CNC, at ÉCLAIR CINEMA, from the original negative. 

A FILM DESK RELEASE

Reviews

“IRRESISTIBLE. THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF BRESSON’S ACHIEVEMENT.”
– Dave Kehr

“Dazzlingly severe and beautiful… With LANCELOT DU LAC we are again in the inimitable Bresson world of airtight graveness.”
– Penelope Gilliat, The New Yorker

4 OUT OF 4 STARS “From France’s supreme religious film tragedian, perhaps the grimmest and most poetic of all retellings of the tale of King Arthur… Shot in compellingly austere colors and a rapt gaze sweeping downward from the sky…”
– Michael Wilnington, Chicago Tribune