Under the Holy Cloak

A critique of Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac (1974)

Abstract

Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac (1974) is constructed by a series of threads that form a poetic plot, reflecting ancient Arthurian legends of bravery and honour over a mundane narrative, which binds together disbelieving knights, a vibrant love, and a God who gazes down from the trees. It is in small, secular spaces that the details of this story take shape, in billowing tents, stone corridors, attics, it is in glances, in a lost handkerchief, behind a door.