Review of Looking for a Grail Legend

Introduction

Dan Brown has a lot to answer for. Not content with recycling old theories and quite content to have them hailed as new and edgy in response to his novel `The Da Vinci Code`, the popular legitimacy of the Grail legend as a clandestine Catholic conspiracy as opposed to discredited psuedohistorical gubbins - all his doing - has turned the endearing ancient myth of the Grail as a missing Holy Chalice into the stuff of sheer nonsense in the eyes of the pop culture-dependant who receive their measure of historical fables at train station newsagents. While, in all fairness, Brown turned in a popular page turner - in turn made into a half-decent film - and kickstarted a resurgence of interest in the history of the Church, Leonardo Da Vinci and the places featured in the story, the old myth still wipes the floor with the now popular interpretation: Jesus drank from and bled into a cup, it went AWOL, King Arthur and his court got themselves into a tizzy over finding it, before it turned up in the summer of 1989 to save Sean Connery from a nasty Nazi bullet.

`Looking for a Grail Legend` thankfully sidles away from the Mary Magdalene tale. After all, it`s a bit late in the day for yet another Da Vinci cash-in. Instead, the four-part series focuses on the traditional ancient myth, the possible resting place, and the everlasting search for it that reaches back beyond the Dark Ages.

1. Joseph of Arimathea`s Glastonbury
2. King Arthur
3. The Knights Templar
4. Pilgrimage to Rosslyn Chapel

Video

It`s a budget disc, so the letterboxed 1.78:1 is no real surprise. There are instances of artefacting and mosquito noise, but they`re par for the course with on-the-cheap transfers that run for 130 minutes on a single layer DVD-5.

Audio

A badly mixed Dolby Digital 5.1. Someone decided to force the entire soundtrack through the whole soundstage, and so the heavy dialogue hails as much from the rear and front surrounds as it does from the centre channel. The dialogue itself is somewhat tinny and fuzzy, sounding as if it`s been over-compressed at some point.

Features

None.

Conclusion

Looking for a Grail legend? You won`t find too much of that here. Disappointingly, this isn`t a Tony Robinson-style myth-chasing exercise. These four episodes are linked by the people and places commonly associated with the Holy Grail legend, but there`s little focus on the history of the object itself. Instead, it takes an analytical approach, highlighting points where myth and history diverge, delivering biographies on King Arthur and the Knights Templar and what come across as tourist guides to the places that feature prominently in the legend. It uses the conventional documentary approach; talking heads - in this case rather stuff academics - waxing lyrical about their specialist subject, indispersed with scenery, artwork or re-enactment. It is fairly interesting, certainly informative and reasonably well put together, but there`s little sense of cohesiveness or continuity throughout the episodes, and the analytical approach almost over-scrutinises the myth, removing it of its majesty, and the eagerness to concentrate on historical fact and the expectation of requisite knowledge - it`s not until the second episode where the origins of the Grail legend is discussed - makes `Looking for a Grail Legend` seem like a missed opportunity.