year 5 day 82

movie: Excalibur
starring:Helen Mirren, Nigel Terry
genre:Adventure, Fantasy
year:1981
format: Hollywood Suites Channel

plot:The fable of Camelot and King Arthur unravel as he's betrayed by those around him.

It's no secret that I love stories that fall into the "sword and sorcery" genre. Specially when there is more sorcery then anything else, and for years every time someone started mentioning this film, I would say I hadn't seen it, and they would raise an eyebrow at me promptly telling me how much I'll love the film.  They all lied.  There is something about the whole King Arthur thing that just doesn't interest me. I can't put my finger on it, but the stories in general leave me cold. But, for some reason, it keeps popping up lately.

Here, we have what could only be described as one of the most contrite few hours of storytelling. It is suppose to span over about 50 or so years, but there is no real indication of time, which made it jarring to sit through. 
A lot of it happened in dream sequences. Sort of on the idea of astral projection, specially with the spell work that seemed to be happening. The knights ended up in odd vision quests/hex induced nightmares that really lent itself to the era it was coming off from. Very trippy.

The beginning introduced the idea that Arthur's father was just beyond greedy, a letch who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And he does in the form of stealing his once friend's wife, killing his friend, and using a spell to do so. Years later, the step daughter uses the same glamour spell to seduce her brother Arthur and gives birth to their son. You almost get the impression that there is an incestuous relationship between Morgana and her son as well. Merlin is sort of this ambiguous character who you never really know what side he's on? He put me in mind of a trickster through all his scenes. Almost like the magick mirror in Snow White, telling the truth only to infuriate.

what did I learn? This movie was unclear in it's motives and about an hour too long.