A Canterbury Tale (1944)

I had a hard time finding a line that would sum up this movie. I came up with "delightful!... almost to the point of surreal". The Archers (nickname of writer/producer/director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger), were "the" British filmmakers of the 1940s. Their movies were epics of extreme beauty and delightful composition, which have inspired generations and generations. One can cite "The Live and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1943, a personal favourite of mine), "A Matter of Life and Death" (1945), or "The Red Shoes" (1948, the ultimate ballet movie, worshipped by legions of girl dancers to this day). Yet almost all of their other works deserve attention. By 1944 Britain was at war, and the studios were either producing comedies or lift-soldiers-and-population-moral movies, usually about German spies trying to penetrate England and being stopped by average heroes. Well, this movie is neither, and it becomes bold and daring because of that. Only the Archers could release a movie like this at such a critical time in history. The movie opens with the reading of Chaucer's Canterbury Tale poem with images of a medieval hunting party. As they release a hawk and it sores through the sky, it suddenly becomes a plane and we are in 1944 England. A train stops in a small village near Canterbury, and three people come out. A British girl with a past, a British soldier with a love for organ music, an American soldier who is sad for not receiving letters from his girlfriend. As they go from the station, some unknown figure in the bushes pours glue into the girls hair. They discover this is not an isolated incident. In the shadow of Canterbury Cathedral, a powerful figure always present, they try to solve the mystery (with the amusing help of the children of the village), at the same time as they deal with their own, more serious, inner war time demons. The town leader hides something and the town people are an amusing bunch, as couldn't help being. In the end the movie is really about nothing, it has laughs, it has silly situations, and it gives some sort of war time morale at the end. Everything gets solved, we know who throws glue to the women's hair and why, and all the characters problems find an almost divine solution. To see this movie now maybe becomes a little hollow, but to see it in 1944, well, it must have been wonderful, because it relieves the mind from troubles with a simple story, shows soldiers in amusing form, has delightful scenes with villagers, and shows to full prominence one of England's greatest monuments, unharmed by the Blitz, the Canterbury Cathedral. And technically it is always superb, nobody had an eye for composition like the Archers, specially in the night shots. The game of light and shadow would make even Orson Wells jealous. Delightful and easy going with a serious touch, to give an escape and a little something more to war time audiences.