John Boorman
Excalibur

It is important to say right away that it is a long, baroque film, and in some passages maybe even a bit kitsch. But what a story Boorman tells us! He recounts one of the great tales woven into the fabric of our past, confused between history and myth. We are in the middle of the Middle Ages, and for over two hours of film, the events of the life and death of King Arthur unfold before us.

Boorman starts from afar, from the conception of the King, born from the lust of Uther, an invincible knight but not destined, who asks Merlin to make him assume the appearance of the Duke, his enemy, just to possess his splendid wife. Merlin agrees on the condition of claiming, after about twenty years, the child born of that artifice. Of course, the child is Arthur, who proves to be the destined one by pulling Excalibur from the rock in which it was embedded. This is followed by all the events that recount the magnificent and well-known epic: from the marriage with Guinevere to the clash with Lancelot (who will become the greatest of Arthur's nobles), from the institution of the Knights of the Round Table to the betrayal of Guinevere and Lancelot that breaks the idyll and ends the era of peace and prosperity.

From this moment on, I believe Boorman gives the best of his vision of the myth, portraying the kingdom's decline through images of great lyricism and drama. The search for the Holy Grail constitutes the central moment of the second part of the film, depicting Parsifal's desperate attempt to give the dying King the only remedy capable of "filling his soul" and gathering strength for the final clash with Mordred, the sacrilegious son from the union with his sister Morgana, who closes the magical circle opened by his father Uther by again assuming, thanks to Merlin, the appearance of the beloved and lost Guinevere. The film closes with the last, epic battle between Arthur and his son, ending with the death of both and Arthur's entry into myth. Excalibur will be cast back by Parsifal into the lake from which it emerged years and years before, to be handed over to a new king capable of bringing peace to the entire land.

Destiny guides and decides the human affairs of the main characters, all of whom possess deep tragedy: Arthur, who, being the destined one, sacrifices his life to the chivalric ideal; Lancelot, who almost desperately betrays his King and finds only in death his quest for atonement; Guinevere, who constitutes the unintentional (?) cause of Camelot's downfall; Parsifal, who in the solitude of his mission finds the profound reason for his service to the chivalric cause.

In short, it is not easy to synthesize the complexity of the story told, but Boorman, through images of great and moving lyricism, conveys the essence of the myth, encapsulating the mystery of the Grail that Parsifal manages to unveil: the Earth and Arthur are one and the same, and if "there is a King without a sword, the Earth is without a King."