John Boorman’s passionate retelling of the Arthurian Legend lives up to the moniker “as you’ve never seen it before.” Excalibur is an epic visual feast, with superb lighting, sets, costumes and some amazing armor. This film came out before the MTV Top Gun 80’s, more during the disco era and you can see the visual influence, though this is far from campy. Boorman visualizes the time as more mythological than historical, with a sense of practical magic you find in Miyazaki. Wizards and witches, knights in armor, a powerful sword and a lady in a lake. It all works within one grand, unified vision. There’s even constant reference to “the dragon” which here represents God or the Earth, the power which is greater than us all.
The story moves about in fits and starts. The pacing is so uneven and I think it’s exactly according to plan. Some sequences (like Arthur’s rise) are rushed like pages were missing from the script. Others (the quest for the grail) are like rough cuts with all the subplots left in. In either section, the emotions and tone is perfectly conveyed so you can dwell in the beautiful imagery while at the same time it’s moving too fast for you to keep up. Boorman’s philosophy is too thick to fully get in just a couple of settings. He’s presenting so many different points about stuff like the constant downfall caused by man’s lust and the burden of being all knowing, but I like that it’s not preaching. The film presents interesting points of view, and leaves you alone to agree or disagree with it. The one constant is characters are victims of their passions. When they suppress their humanity they can become mythical. Legend.
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