This unusual film is based on the earliest Grail story, The Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes.  Unfortunately, Chrétien never finished the story—either he died, or else his patron died before he could complete it.  Rohmer’s film interpretation of the medieval poem is meant visually to represent the kind of medieval manuscripts in which Chrétien’s story is found.  Much of the action is narrated either by the characters themselves, or else by a group of minstrels; the French spoken by the actors is neither modern French, nor Old French, but modern French with an archaic syntax and vocabulary.  It’s strange, but the most thought-provoking of Arthurian films.