"He died in battle?" - "It's a family tradition."

So, finally King Arthur came to German cinemas, so on Thursday Jörg and I invited my brother to watch it because he'll look after the cats while we're on the Wewelsburg. Except for the part where my brother paid, so actually he invited us. But we'll get that right somehow.

The weirdness began with the trailers. Some good trailers - The Village, which looks creepy, Alexander, which looks heroic; some of the ordinary "needn't see that" trailers - Collateral, where they told all of the story in the trailer already, or so it seems, some other film I've forgotten - and one that really freaked me out (in a bad way). Der Untergang ("The Downfall"). Adaptation of the memoirs of someone or other important Nazi wife. Gah. I dislike overly pathetic, heroic and tragic movies (the Pearl Harbour style) anyway; and there are contexts where they are Just Wrong. The scary thing about the film is that the trailer made it look like your Ordinary War Heroic Tragic Fate Movie. The even scarier thing is that the trailer seemed to try and make the audience pity Hitler, Himmler and the likes. Maybe the trailer was just cut in a very unlucky way and the quotes chosen in a very unlucky way, so it seemed so... supportive of its content, of its characters; but WTF? The last person I want to pity is Hitler. Now really. Aw, poor man, his big idea is dying and he's losing hope and faith? I don't think so. *shudders* And the way they listed the actors! "Some Guy [forgot his name] IS Adolf Hitler." Uh. I say we kill Some Guy before he starts killing other people. Usually this was the Voldemort "You-know-who" of German cinematics; if he was mentioned, then hidden somewhere back in the credits.

I suppose this somehow has something to do with what we learned in Anthropology, the "memory shift" occuring throughout a space of time called saeculum (although it is theoretically only 80 years long). Basically, two to three generations or 40 years after an event, there is the first shift, when the contemporary witnesses die; since their personal memory of the event dies along with them, the emphasis is now laid on the communicative memory, i.e. what the contemporary witnesses left by telling their descendants or writing down stuff or collecting documents. The second shift occurs 80 years after the original event - 40 years/ 2-3 generations after the first shift - when the last people (the grandchildren, usually) who still had direct contact with the contemporary witnesses of the event die as well. Afterwards, the event enters cultural memory for good; it is now part of history in the strict sense of not being immediately remembered by anyone who witnessed it or anyone who was told immediately by someone who witnessed it. The periods of time may have to be re-defined from 40/80 to at least 60/120 years, since people usually live longer than ~50 years nowadays; but this is how the theory works. Now the 60 years are just over, and they suddenly change depiction of certain things so thorougly? And in a way that makes me want to run away screaming? Bwah.

Anyway, King Arthur; spoiler-free, I think. It was not exactly a bad movie; it had beautiful people, beautiful images, a great story, some good lines. But it was... full of empty spaces. And because it was meant so very serious, I was secretly (or not so secretly, as my brother and Jörg would probably point out) amused. Also, some the dialogue was outright laughable. "I'm Gwenhwyfar. You're Arthur." Yes. Me Tarzan, you Jane. WTF? Am also sort of confused by the use of crossbows. I know the Chinese had developped crossbows around 200 BC; but I thought they weren't used in Europe until 800 AD, and the movie's supposed to be set in the 5th century. Ah well. There were bowstocks around 500, so I suppose those crossbows in the movie were supposed to be bowstocks. Whatever. The battle scenes were all highly unrealistic anyway, so one crossbow more or less makes no difference...

And "historical evidence" yes or no, I prefer the mystic and mythological versions of the Arthur tale. So there was a Roman named Artorius Castus (Arthur the Chaste. Ahahahah. Hahahah. Hah.)? That's nice. If that's all it takes to have "historical evidence", I'm now going to make another King Arthur movie. Because, you know, there's linguistic evidence that the name Arthur actually comes from Sindarin (artur, noble ruler) or Adûnaic (arthur, hidden king). Yes. I think that is historical evidence enough to prove that King Arthur was actually the last descendant of Eärendil and the last king of the Dúnedain. Heck, I'm a friend of Avalon and Nimue and Morgaine le Fay and all them mythological figures, though I must confess that a fighting, non-Christian, non-angsting Gwenhwyfar was nice for a change. Anyway, I know you can't wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you , but... actually I think you should.
And there was something wrong with the pacing. Like with Hidalgo, you have great landscapes, a great story, great actors, but if you were to draw a suspense diagram, it would look something like this: __/\________/\________/\____________/\_______/\__. Too bad. Still, worth it for the pretty guys.
I wondered all through the movie where I knew Gawain from. I didn't recognize him then, though. The revelation came later. OWEN LARS FROM EPISODE 2. Go figure.

Oh. And it's Myrddin. Merlin is the name he was given for the French because Myrddin sounded too much like merde. But it's Myrddin. If you're going for historical correctness...

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( 'Er ist im Kampf gestorben?' - 'Ist 'ne Familientradition.' )

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