Based on Conte du Graal, Chrétien de Troyes' 12th-century Arthurian romance about Perceval's quest for the Holy Grail, [Perceval] exhibits the meticulous antihistoricism evident in Rohmer's The Marquise of O…. Once again, the director's intent is to strip away our preconceptions and present the work as it appeared to its original audience.

The problem with such an endeavor, of course, is that cinema is a 20th-century medium….

To counteract the modern inclination toward realism, he has set the movie on a sound stage with painted backdrops and artificial scenery; the highly stylized golden castles and silver trees give Perceval the look of an illuminated manuscript. (p. 19)

[This] does remove Perceval from our modern categories of drama and place it squarely in the middle of the medieval cosmos, at least as Rohmer perceives it. Yet in one respect the director has been too faithful to his material: The...