A CANTERBURY TALE (CRITERION COLLECTION)

Edited By Jason Gargano

A CANTERBURY TALE

1944, Not Rated

The word "gentle" rarely is used to describe films about World War II, but Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale is hardly a typical war film. Loosely based on Chaucer and made in bucolic, pastoral Kent, England, this black-and-white film is an ode to the civility and quiet beauty of the English countryside and the welcoming spirit it produces. The "pilgrims" are a British and an American soldier near Canterbury during the war, as well as a British "landgirl" doing farm work because men are training for war. The plot turns very slightly on a mysterious criminal who throws glue at women walking with soldiers. It leads to a visually majestic ending of understated spiritual and patriotic power at Canterbury Cathedral. A second disc includes a recent interview with actress Sheila Sim, the landgirl, and a 2001 film about actor John Sweet's (the American) return visit to Canterbury. (Steven Rosen) Grade: A

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