I’m starting writing stuff about Arthurian movies and books.
Let me introduce to you Lancelot du Lac, an awarded movie from 1974 relating the story of Lancelot and Guinevere’s love while Camelot and the Round Table fall apart.
The movie was a little boring due to expressionless actors but it was a quite interesting one. Indeed, the movie allow you to focus on other kind of emotion, things that you usually wouldn’t never notice.
Also, the chess scene between Mordred and Gawain was a great one.
In this scene Mordred moves his queen to attack the black king and says
Check!
But if you look closer to the picture, there is no black king, it’s a queen. Is this an error of the film director or just a way to say that taking the Queen Guinevere is the same as killing the King Arthur?
Anyway, right after, somebody around the chessboard notices that the black knight can kill the white queen. Mordred removes the knight from the board and says :
Parti ! Envolé ! Mort le cavalier ! Gone, flown. The knight is dead.
And guess what? At this moment, Lancelot is missing. Nobody knows where he is.
Then, Gawain arrives and says that Mordred is cheating and ask him if he will explain his move. The tension between the two men rises.
I think it’s pretty clear that this scene describes the treachery of Mordred against his king and uncle, Arthur.