THE CANTERBURY TALES Movie Review

The second of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Medieval Trilogy is the one best forgotten. It consists of four Chaucerian episodes, which, rather amazingly, all manage to miss the mark. The movie has a mean-spiritedness and graphically unpleasant tone, which feels more like a dare than a daring reinterpretation. In a modest and self-effacing bit of casting, Pasolini himself plays Chaucer; others in the largely wasted cast include Hugh Griffith, Laura Betti, and Jenny Runacre. Arabian Nights and The Decameron are more fun, more substantial, and less gratuitously vicious.

NEXT STOP … Arabian Nights, Mamma Roma, Fellini Satyricon

1971 109m/C IT Laura Betti, Ninetto Davoli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Hugh Griffith, Josephine Chaplin, Michael Balfour, Jenny Runacre; D: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Berlin International Film Festival '72: Golden Berlin Bear. VHS WBF