User Reviews

THE RED KNIGHT is about the titular knight, a Crusader returned to France, who is sent on a mission with his idealistic young squire to look for the favourite poet of the Pope, who has run away for love. The Red Knight is assisted by various companions and opposed by an evil knight.

On paper that sounds like the start of a good action-adventure flick. This is not that flick. This is art house. This is a baffling, often incomprehensible, film. Rather than a story, things just sort of happen. The medieval world shown is hilariously inaccurate. The costuming for instance, is half-fantasy and half a plundering of historical period. 15th century armour competes with Norman haircuts from the 11th century competes with total invention. But hey? Terry Gilliam does that all the time and his movies are great! Well, Helene Angel is no Gilliam.

Gilliam succeeds for two reasons. Firstly, his stories are so wild that there is always an anticipation; what will be the next wild flight of fancy? Secondly, he grounds his films in reality. Sure, a bunch of dwarfs have stolen a map that can allow them to cross time and space, but when they meet Napoleon you have no doubt that his soldiers get lice or chase women. In contrast this film is pure and total fantasy throughout. The costumes in this film might be interesting but they don't make up for the lack of reality or excitement throughout.

The film just leaps from one situation to another, with no respect either to common sense or to history. Like most medieval films the intellectual and spiritual life shown on screen owes more to modern beliefs about what they thought than what they actually did think. After a while the viewer becomes frustrated and bored with the odd characters and the nonsensical plot and resigns themselves to looking at the pretty images (and they are pretty). All in all a total waste of good actors, set-designers/costume department and cameramen for want of a decent script or director.