Perceval ou le Conte du Graal (1965)

This is quite an interesting short documentary, centred around French poet Chrétien de Troyes’ own fifteenth century interpretation of the Arthurian legends from almost a millennium earlier across the channel in both what eventually became England and Wales. With the complete work of de Troyes now lost, this uses snippets from his work to illustrate just how things worked at the round table, focussing on two of it’s knights. Lancelot, it suggests, was not driven by any grand chivalric purpose - but more by his devotion to women in general and his queen Guinevere in particular. Perceval of Wales is also a knight who’s character isn’t rooted on chivalry either. Indeed this seeker of the Holy Grail came from a family who intentionally spurned that code for fear of the dangers it might bring to his low-born family. The poem and it’s more latter day continuations also introduce connections between this mythology and that of the “Fisher King” and well as offering us elements of a quest that we might normally associate more with Gawain, but by using some authentic, monastic looking, text and drawings it offers us another take on the story that has, apparently, seen over one hundred adaptations for the big screen. If you’re a fan of the legend, then this is well worth twenty minutes and it is quite astonishing that almost another millennium after his poetry was written, it and his subject is still being talked about.