The Mists of Avalon (film)

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Movie
German title The Mists of Avalon
Original title The Mists of Avalon
Country of production USA ,
Germany ,
Czech Republic
original language English
Publishing year 2001
length 183 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Uli Edel
script Gavin Scott ,
Marion Zimmer Bradley
(based on a novel)
production Gideon Amir ,
Bernd Eichinger
music Lee Holdridge
camera Vilmos Zsigmond
cut Benjamin A. Weissman ,
Michael Friedlander
occupation

The Mists of Avalon (original title: The Mists of Avalon ) is a two-part television fantasy film by the German director Uli Edel from 2001 . The film is based on the novel of the same name by Marion Zimmer Bradley from 1983 and tells the story of women from the Arthurian legend.

action

At first you can see the adult Morgaine being driven in a rowboat through a foggy lake. She begins to talk about her life.

During the war against the Anglo-Saxons, the young Morgaine lives with her mother Igraine and her aunt Morgause in the castle of her father Gorlois , the Duke of Cornwall, who is rarely at home because of the war. The three women are members of the old religion; they venerate the Great Mother , but mostly hide it because Christians treat them with contempt. Igraine, like Morgause, is from the island of Avalon and has the ability to see into the future. She foresees the arrival of the druid Merlin and her older sister Viviane , who will arrive at the castle shortly afterwards. Viviane is the "mistress of the lake", the chief priestess of Avalon. She tells Igraine that she will have a son, a great British leader. But she won't have this child from her husband, but from someone with a dragon tattoo on her arm. Igraine is reluctant, which is why the jealous Morgause (who is hardly blessed with the gifts of Avalon) offers to have the child because she is unmarried. Viviane rebukes her sharply. Morgaine cries out in horror when she receives the vision of a dying man, although she is still very young. Viviane says that because of her powerful gifts, she must be brought to Avalon soon.

Igraine travels with her husband to Londinium to attend a meeting of the Great King Ambrose to arrange his succession , where she meets Uther . The two immediately fall in love, but Igraine is scared when she sees the dragon on Uther's arm. He talks to her, telling her that he is also a follower of the goddess and is therefore convinced that the two know each other from a previous life. Uther becomes the new great king. Eaten by envy of the royal crown and jealousy because of his wife's love for Uther, Igraines husband tries to murder Uther from an ambush. Viviane telepathically contacts Igraine from Avalon and tells her to warn Uther. Igraine obeys, albeit reluctantly, because although she loves Uther, she knows that in battle he has no choice but to kill her husband, which also comes true Morgaine's prophecy. Igraine is very bad afterwards. Morgause and Morgaine want to collect herbs for medicine, but are held in the castle courtyard. When Morgaine secretly slips away through the window, she is caught and very roughly brought back to the castle by the soldiers. But the Merlin appears, accompanied by her father, who orders that his daughter be released. Overjoyed, Morgaine runs to him and walks with his hand next to the horse. She sees the dragon tattoo and understands that the Merlin protects Uther's true face with a spell. While Uther is with Igraine, Morgause asks her niece why she is so sad. Morgaine explains that she is waiting for her father because the man with her mother is not. Shortly afterwards, her father's body is brought in and his men swear their allegiance to Uther.

Uther marries Igraine and takes her, Morgause and Morgaine with him to Camelot , where Morgaine’s half-brother Arthur is born. The two siblings develop a very deep love for each other and spend a few happy years on Camelot, because under Uther the Anglo-Saxons were finally driven out of the country.

But Viviane reappears. She has seen that peace will not last forever and wants both Arthur and Morgaine to be trained for their destiny. The two children are first separated from their parents and then from each other. Viviane brings Morgaine to Avalon and teaches her to break away from the human world and only to follow her duties as a priestess. Morgaine grows up to be a woman and is finally consecrated. For the first time she is allowed to share the Mists of Avalon, which separate the island from the real world and the nearby Glastonbury Monastery . Then she gets the mark of a priestess on her forehead.

After many years she is once again allowed into the human world and is supposed to bring home Lancelot , Viviane's son, who wants to break away from Avalon. His mother tries to change his mind. She sends him to the stone circle with Morgaine so that he can again become aware of the power of the Great Mother. Some women from Glastonbury pass by by chance; one of them is the beautiful young Gwenhwyfar , who cannot see the stone circle through the magical mist, but can feel it. Lancelot asks Morgaine, who has fallen in love with him, to lower the fog. Gwenhwyfar is a staunch Christian and therefore fears Morgaine. However, she and Lancelot fall in love and he offers to show her Avalon. More out of jealousy than to protect her world, Morgaine locks her out of the fog again, which resents her Lancelot. He leaves Avalon for good and goes to Camelot as a knight.

At the harvest and fertility festival of the goddess, Morgaine is painted and masked as a “virgin huntress” deflowered in a special ceremony by a man who is also masked. Both enjoy the night very much, but don't know anything about the other because they don't talk to each other either. But the man was Arthur, who asks Merlin to tell him about the woman who fascinated him very much. But the Merlin tells him that he will never see her again.

When the Anglo-Saxons invade Camelot again, Uther dies in battle. Arthur arrives just in time to see his father one last time. Surrounded by fire, he calls the Christian God and the mother goddess, asks her for help. Viviane appears to him in a vision and asks him to pull the sword Excalibur out of the stone and to follow the goddess in the future. Arthur swears it and becomes the next great king after a victory against the Anglo-Saxons. For his coronation all of Britain gathers on Camelot. Lancelot and Gwenhwyfar meet again, which confirms the fact that she wasn't just dreaming back then in Glastonbury. Morgaine greets her aunt, now married and mother to one grown son, and her mother, who in deep desperation decides to break with her old religion and spend the rest of her life in the convent - in Glastonbury. Arthur sees his sister again and tells her about the night with the "virgin huntress". Morgaine realizes that she slept with her own brother. At Arthur's coronation and marriage to Gwenhwyfar (who breaks both her and Lancelot's hearts), she discovers she is pregnant and knows that it can only be Arthur's child. Morgause wants to help her to abort the child, because as the son of the royal sister, it threatens the inheritance of her own son. Viviane prevents her from doing so, but Morgaine knows that Viviane and Merlin have planned the whole thing, and in anger renounces her and Avalon, even though she was supposed to be Viviane's successor and the next mistress of the lake. But she decides to carry the child to term. She moves to Morgause in Lothian , who previously cursed Gwenhwyfar: she will never have a child.

When Lancelot accompanies the Queen on a ride, they are ambushed, but can save themselves in a forest hut, where they confess their love to each other. But Lancelot remains loyal to his best friend Arthur, nor does Gwenhwyfar want to commit adultery. After the birth of her son, Morgaine is exhausted and feverish. On behalf of her husband, Morgause wants to kill the child, but the sick Morgaine says half in a dream that it is Arthur's son. Morgause decides to raise the boy as her own son and thus always be able to manipulate him. After a few years, Mordred is almost completely estranged from his birth mother. Morgaine is restless and no longer wants to stay in Lothian. Morgause encourages her to return to Camelot, which she does. She leaves Mordred in her aunt's care. On Camelot, she confesses her love to Lancelot, who she rejects. But she gets to know Accolon, who falls in love with her and with whom she sleeps for the next harvest and fertility festival. At the same time Arthur gets drunk and tells Gwenhwyfar and Lancelot that it is up to him that Gwenhwyfar does not have a child. He asks Lancelot to have a descendant for him. When this fails, Gwenhwyfar accuses her husband of this temptation to sin, becomes moody and begins to detest all non-Christians. Finally, she directs her hatred against Morgaine, the strongest representative of the ancient religion in her environment, even though she received a fertility spell from her. When Morgaine dances with Accolon at the summer festival, Gwenhwyfar proposes her as the new wife for his aging father Uriens, the King of North Wales. Morgaine hears from Arthur that a Welsh follower of the goddess has asked for her hand and believes it is Accolon. But she realizes the mistake too late: she can no longer reject the Welsh king without offending him. She moves with him to Wales and experiences a time of peace there.

The Merlin comes to Avalon and dies after a final conversation with Viviane. In desperation, Viviane does not notice that Avalon is beginning to sink into the fog. She tries in vain to contact Morgaine telepathically. When her husband dies, Accolon hopes that she will now marry him. But Morgaine longs for Avalon and says goodbye with a heavy heart. She goes to the mists, but cannot divide them. She drifts in her boat and ends up in despair at Glastonbury, where her mother has become an abbess and takes her to her home.

Meanwhile, Mordred learns the truth about his origins in a vision from Viviane, whereupon he goes to Camelot as a knight of the Round Table. Arthur happily welcomes him as his nephew. He suspects nothing of his fatherhood until Mordred offers himself to him as an heir if he falls in battle. Gwenhwyfar is outraged when she learns that Morgaine has had a child from Arthur. Desperate, she throws Lancelot on the neck, but Mordred lets the affair blow up and ensures that Gwenhwyfar and Lancelot are banished. Lancelot asks Gwenhwyfar to stay with him, but she doesn't want to be on the run forever and instead goes to the monastery, where she reconciles with Morgaine and tells her that she must stand by her brother. So Morgaine returns to Camelot again, where she surprisingly meets Viviane and is reconciled with her. When she arrived at the castle, she discovered that Mordred, under Morgause's influence, was violating the life he propagated "according to the old Avalon laws" with his bloodthirsty acts at court. When Morgause attacks Viviane, Viviane kills Morgause and is then stabbed by Mordred. Morgaine goes to her brother and tells him to lead his people against the Anglo-Saxons one last time. She talks to him about Mordred and gives him Excalibur back. While Lancelot returns to Arthur's side for this battle, Morgaine burns her two aunts according to old tradition. She is interrupted by a vision of Mordred and Artus facing each other. She quickly rides to the battlefield, but only finds her dying son (who had sided with the Anglo-Saxons) and her seriously injured brother. Lancelot fell too. Morgaine brings Arthur home at his request: He means Avalon.

From this point on, the initial scene begins. Morgaine drives in the small boat through the fog and tries again in vain to get through to Avalon. Then she returns the Excalibur sword to the lake. As he dies, Arthur can see Avalon one more time before it disappears. Morgaine is also locked out. She goes back to Glastonbury and believes for a long time that belief in the goddess is gone. But finally she recognizes the Great Mother in Mary, the Mother of God, and can hope ...

Differences between book and film

The film, shot in the Czech Republic, focuses on the central female characters of the Arthurian legend. However, the original novel The Mists of Avalon by the American fantasy writer Marion Zimmer Bradley is not reproduced correctly. The first part of the film leaves a large part of the plot of the novel unmentioned. The second part also has little correspondence with the book. In the novel, Morgaine, Morgause and Lionors, the wife of the knight Gareth and later abbess of Glastonbury monastery, survive in the end . The latter does not appear in the film, and Morgaine and her mother Igraine survive, who in the novel dies during Morgaine 's stay in the fairy realm. This episode does not appear in the film either, nor does the fairy queen, which is actually important for the plot. In the film Viviane dies fighting with her half-sister Morgause towards the end of the plot, in the novel she is killed by her son's foster brother much earlier. Taliesin dies in the novel as a result of the pain of her loss, and the office of Merlin passes to Kevin, Morgaines lover, who also does not appear in the film.

In summary, it can be said that the viewer in the film supposedly learns new information that he does not receive in the Arthurian legend or in the novel The Mists of Avalon .

Reviews

“A star-studded film in gorgeous sets that does not question the myth but adds a new interpretation to it,” said the lexicon of international films . In short, Uli Edel's adaptation is an “entertaining excursion into the pre-Middle Ages”. For Cinema it was "a gigantic, metaphor-rich soap opera about power, mysteries, and a turning point". The conclusion was: "Early medieval soap with depth."

Awards

The film received an Emmy in the category Best Mask and was nominated in eight other categories:

  • Best equipment
  • Best camera
  • Best costume design
  • Best hair styling
  • Best miniseries
  • Best music
  • Best Female Supporting Actress: Anjelica Huston
  • Best Female Supporting Actress: Joan Allen

Further awards and nominations:

publication

The Mists of Avalon premiered on July 15, 2001. The German first broadcast of the two parts took place on January 20 and 21, 2002 on SAT 1 . The film was released on video and DVD on December 2, 2002 .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Mists of Avalon. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 24, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ cf. cinema.de
  3. ↑ The Mists of Avalon. In: zelluloid.de. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on August 24, 2018 .