Kaamelott is a French comedy medieval fantasy television series created, directed, written, scored, and edited by Alexandre Astier, who also starred as the main character.
[1] Based on the Arthurian legends, it followed the daily lives of King Arthur (Alexandre Astier) and his Knights of the Round Table in Camelot.
Season 6 had a theatrical premiere as part of the "Paris fait sa comédie" festival, with a showing of seven episodes at the Grand Rex theater on March 25, 2009.
[12] The double A forms the monogram of the show's creator, and the title generates puns based on the French word camelote ("cheap junk").
The short format of the first four seasons demanded a comic structure, with each episode ending on an ironic note of some kind which would twist the situation presented into a memorable whole.
Thus the series was perceived as pure comedy—parody, satire, sitcom, or “so British,” meaning a straight-faced historical send-up in the style of Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder or Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Season 6 was conceived and edited only in a miniseries format, with long episodes telling a story that is primarily dramatic, with incidental comic elements.
However, a few episodes suggest the possibility of an intersection of the traditional Arthurian world of fairies and wizards with science fiction (see the description of Perceval's character below).
Although the show was at first perceived as pure comedy, in many ways it follows the medieval Arthurian legends, including such traditional characters as Lancelot, Guenièvre, Bohort (Bors), Perceval, Merlin, and the Lady of the Lake, as well as the Holy Grail and the sword Excalibur.
The early seasons often include twists on traditional Arthurian or medieval themes which might delight scholars; historians Eric Le Nabour and Martin Aurell have published two books based on the series, and a number of distinguished medievalists are interviewed in the 5-part documentary "Aux sources de Kaamelott" by Christophe Chabert, which accompanies the DVD sets.
In Livre VI, we learn that Perceval was found as a baby in a crop circle, which, if these are made by space travellers from other planets, explains his affinity for stargates.
Supernatural beings encountered by Arthur include Morgan Le Fay (not his sister, but involved with his eventual fate), Méléagant the emissary of gods who seem to want to destroy human rulers, and his guide the Lady of the Lake; at the beginning of Livre VI.2, a meeting of the gods whom the Lady of the Lake represents is depicted on Alpha Centauri, which implies that they at least are beings whose home is "the stars" rather than on earth.
Arthur enters history as the victor of twelve battles of the British against the Saxons[19] and is also often depicted fighting the Picts and the Scots in the north.
[20] Astier's Arthur, by contrast, apparently stays close to his fortress Kaamelott, where he is attacked by Angles and Saxons but also by Attila and his Hun, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Vikings, Visigoths—just about every "barbarian" people that was on the move in Europe then (though Attila was active earlier and the Vikings later), except for the Franks, ancestors of the French (though a historically Frankish leader, Chlodoric, does lead "barbarians" against Arthur).
The geopolitics of Kaamelott resembles that of the comic book world of Asterix—a small, primitive "Celtic" society with its druid, warrior, and secret weapon, persisting on the edges of the Roman Empire—more than traditional English or American versions of the Arthur story.
[21] The main comical device of the series is to explore the distance between conventional "epic" presentations of Arthurian legend and the actual day-to-day operations of Arthur and his knights as they seek the holy Grail.
Arthur is surrounded by incompetent, lazy knights, easily frightened or distracted, who fail most of their missions or who end up finding but then discarding invaluable artifacts, not understanding the nature of their quest.
Moreover, the characters all use the formal second person to address each other—a grammatical feature not present in English, but which produces a hilarious contrast between rude or slangy comments and the formality of expression: “Scram, sir,” or “Get in the tub with me, sir—you're filthy” or “Madam, you are a fish-faced trollop.” Such feature, as well as the use of many colloquialisms (sometimes very obscure or simply invented by the writer) makes it close to impossible to translate and thus convey the humorous dialogue in other languages than french.
The series also uses slapstick for humor (e.g. a cream-cheese fight in Season 3 “La Grande Bataille”), and running gags, which may be verbal (“La Botte Secrète,” the use of the phrase “You're not wrong” to keep up one end of a conversation one does not understand), physical (“Unagi,” the completely absurd martial arts developed by Karadoc and Perceval; the silly caps the characters wear to bed), musical (the song "À la volette" which recurs through the first season), or character-specific (Merlin's conflict between his role as healer-scientist and the court's idea of a magician, Karadoc's truly Gargantuan need for food, Arthur interrupted in his bath by various incursions).
The lead character, King Arthur of Britain (or Logres), has very progressive ideas, and tries to abolish the slave trade, torture, and capital punishment.
Both Léodagan and Lancelot are exasperated by the shenanigans of the so-called knights, and Arthur is torn between admitting they are pretty useless and insisting that they are worthy of the Grail.
For instance, Perceval of Wales first appears in medieval literature in the work of Chretien de Troyes as the destined Grail Knight, but also a clumsy and foolish boy.
Season 5's main plots show Lancelot and Arthur separately voyaging into their own pasts and futures as their conflict builds to a real cliffhanger in the final episode.
Season 6 consists of a flashback to a period 15 years earlier, showing how Arthur came to power in Britain as a representative of the Roman Empire but also as the chosen of the gods, the only man who can wield Excalibur.
Initially, Antoine de Caunes (Dagonet), Christian Bujeau (The Master of Arms) and Bruno Salomone (Caius Camillus) were only guest stars, but eventually they joined the main cast.
These are Jean-Christophe Hembert (Karadoc / art director), Emmanuel Meirieu (Appius Manilius / graphic designer), Stéphane Margot (Calogrenant / stunt coordinator) and Christian Bujeau (The Master of Arms / swordmaster).
The only characters to appear in more than 100 of the 458 episodes are King Arthur (446), Léodagan (228), Perceval (195), Karadoc (172), Lancelot (157), Guenièvre (154), Bohort (138) and Father Blaise (105).
Thanks to its immediate success, the show attracted many guest stars, including director Alain Chabat, actors Christian Clavier, Tchéky Karyo and Émilie Dequenne, and TV anchor Virginie Efira.
They can be read in any order: Eric Le Nabour and Martin Aurell have published two books which discuss the series in terms of medieval history and Arthurian legends.
4 tie-in items (Arthur's Oghma amulet, a mug, a notebook, and a 2009 calendar) were premiums with the purchase of a "Menu Top" at the Quick hamburger chain in late 2008 and early 2009.