Lancelot of the Lake (1974)

demythifies and deromanticizes the Arthurian legend, taking ritual and dogmatic honour to the extreme and exposing their nollow core, The knights themselves symbolise this : seen always in their armour, concealed but not protected by it; unable to find God in their search for the Grail ("God isn't a trophy to bring home", says Guinevere) and similarly unable to accept naked, human interaction, they are revealed at once bound to the earth and out of touch with its grace. The narrative is fragmented, as are the frames (all we see of a pageant are the stomachs of horses and a bagpipe): psychology is irrelevant when an armoured foot is as much a man as his face, armoured or not. The intense visual beauty and unnerving power of this film have earned it the highest accolades from the critics.