A 12th-century courtly romance, spoken in verse and largely musicalized, shot entirely in studio sets of exquisite colors and patently false proportions: Eric Rohmer's Perceval is, for starters, unlike any other film you might have seen. The hero, taken from Chrétien de Troyes, is a wide-eyed Welsh lad who sets out to become an Arthurian knight. (His comic and winning forthrightness was patterned partly after Buster Keaton.) Perceval's adventures lead him through an enchanting world of beautiful maidens, bloody combats, strange spells and shining castles--and finally to a very moving quest for faith. Rohmer has said, “I wanted to show the Middle Ages as the people of the Middle Ages...represented it themselves, as we know it through the spirit of miniatures and illuminated manuscripts.” Rohmer recreates this spirit not only through 12th and 13th century music, painted sets and textured costumes, but in subtle ways as well: in his captivating choice of actors and their studied movements; and in the minimal, very frontal camerawork of Nestor Almendros. For all its scholarly scrupulousness, Perceval is not the least esoteric; Rohmer intended it to be accessible even to children, and indeed it moves with the lightness and verve of a delightful, if decidedly offbeat, musical.