Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

philosopherjack The last scene of Pasolini's wondrous Canterbury Tales emphasizes the narrative as an end in itself - "here end the Canterbury tales, told only for the pleasure of telling them" - and this reflects the film's sense of joyous tumble, one narrative often almost subliminally moving into another. But there's also something relentless about it, a feeling of people lacking in any real agency over themselves, as puppets of their own desires, as tools of those whose desires are stronger than their own, of the corrupt authorities, of the angels and devils which the film occasionally depicts as walking among the living. There's carnal overdrive and naturalistic nudity galore, and of course the film carries an erotic charge, but one that leads time and again to humiliation, misery, betrayal, pain, or death, and ultimately even beyond that, to one of the most tangible visions of hell ever put on film. The film is a triumph not so much of casting in the usual sense, but of human placement - an astonishing canvas of flesh and faces, suggesting people torn directly from the Medieval earth (the matchless English-language soundtrack, if you choose that option, adds considerably to this sense, when not evoking Monty Python, not that I'm saying that's a bad thing); and whether or not the various settings are historically accurate, they likewise feel discovered rather than created. At the same time, there's no doubt we're watching a work of extreme stylization, and not just in the episode that happily channels Charlie Chaplin; characters generally seem to be addressing the camera, or the void beyond it, more than each other. Which leads back to the movie's sense of desperation, that few of its possessed characters expects more from their compulsive screwing than the most fleeting of releases. The classification of the film as part of a "trilogy of life" seems, to say the least, ironic.

tomgillespie2002 Continuing his 'Trilogy of Life' cycle exploring medieval literature, The Canterbury Tales by Pier Paolo Pasolini, delves into some of the tales weaved within Geoffrey Chaucer's famous stories. It explores the myriad sexual depravities and allusions with bawdy gusto, featuring almost every perversion known, from voyeurism, flagellation, homosexuality, to even the "love" of a watermelon. The disparate, prurient tales are interwoven with Pasolini plays Chaucer here at his writing desk, imaging his lasciviousness upon villagers. There is even a strange comic interlude paying homage to Charlie Chaplin, in the form of Pasolini regular, Ninetto Davoli.Whilst the visual style is similar to The Decameron (1970 - Dante Feretti again is art director), the stories do not intertwine as well here, which could create some confusion in the viewer. With a largely British cast (including Tom Baker, Hugh Griffith, Jeeny Runacre, and even Robin Askwith), the film film sometimes feels like a slightly less repressed 1970's British sex comedy (Carry On Canterbury, if you like). With its delight in sexual promiscuity and perversion, it is certainly one of Pasolini's less than intellectual affairs, and even fails to humour. Unless of course your funny bone is easily pleased by fart jokes.With a bizarre finale set in hell (its visual design clearly inspired by the painting of Hieronymus Bosch), we see an over-sized Satan shitting out some plebeian folks, to the obscene delight of those scattered round the pits. Whilst this incredibly short ending is disgustingly joyous, it fails to save a very scatological film, that vies more towards the crass than the enlightening.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

conan4742 When you consider exactly who would ever consider sitting down and making Canterbury tales into a movie (and this should be a small number- a lot of the tales are too subtle to be represented in any form other than text), you would usually think that the maker of the movie would be trying to stay faithful to the stories in themes, plot, and characterization.It is in this regard that Pasolini fails utterly miserably.The tellers of the tales are completely left out. You do not know who's telling a tale. There is little to no segue between tales. Often times, you do not even realize that the tale is over. So, for the first part, you do not know who is telling a tale, or when, or even if a tale is even going on.The few segues that occur consist of a grimy Chaucer sitting around lazily eventually being prodded into work by his waspish wife. Why this is included baffles anyone who knows anything about Chaucer, or even anyone at all.The dubbing on the movie makes low budget martial arts films look like great pillars of art. At times characters shout for minutes on end for no discernible reason. Other characters are entirely unintelligible.The most appalling thing, though, is the inclusion of graphic, graphic sex. I am uncertain what Pasolini was trying to say with this. Why he felt Chaucer was the best source to draw on for such obscenity is beyond me. Indeed, there are sex scenes in the tales. However, Pasolini often goes far, far over the limit. Many male characters seem to do nothing but masturbate whenever they are on screen. There is one sequence that is no tale that I recall which involved a man peeking through holes in doors watching other men have gay anal sex. This I do no recall from any part of Chaucer. Later, one of the homosexuals is burned alive while the apparent protagonist sells bagles to the crowd. Another instance is that the Pardoner's tale begins in a tavern, but Pasolini felt compelled to begin it in a brothel where hideous men force the whores there to have sex with them. Later, one of the men urinates on a dining table while people are trying to eat, and, yes, it is very graphic. It is actual urine.The movie ends (?) with a scene in one tale where the devil farts and wildly defecates feces that turn into demons for possibly five minutes, over-the-top cartoon noises included.If you're into Pasolini, for whatever reason, I guess you might like this movie. I've never seen any of his other work. However, as a fan and scholar of the Tales, this probably is the worst thing you could have possible done it. Basically, this was low-quality porn with bad lighting and horrific sound effects with a vague medieval background, claiming to be one of the greatest works in the English language. Whoever later murdered Pasolini deserves a medal. No, wait, scratch that, a dozen medals.

rathunter This movie is second of Pasolini's so called 'Trilogy of Love' (Il Decameron, I Racconti di Canterbury, Il fiore di mille e una notte; 1970-1974). All these movies are quite specific, there are said not to be that provocative or intriguing. They are greatly influenced by the fact that while directing them Pasolini was contented because of his intimate relationship with the 'innocent barbarian', actor Ninetto Davoli. It is also said that in 'Trilogy of Love' Pasolini became resigned to the present time world by escaping to the past. However I don't think it's true. In these movies, Pasolini introduces to the audience an incorrupt world where people don't care about 'material aspects of life', they try to live at the full stretch, they seek love and, of course, sex and they do not respect 'the repressive limits imposed by religious and bourgeois morality' (Gino Moliterno). This is probably why Pasolini later declared that these three films were most ideological of his career (in his famous and long interview with Massimo Fini). I suppose Pasolini tried to confront such 'primitive' world with the world he had lived in and which he had hated so much (this confrontation is present all the time, especially by the contrast between the love and the death, by the contrast between the first tales, in which the human naked body dominates, and the last two tales in which pursuit of money causes death and perdition. Because of such end it is also suggested that I Racconti di Canterbury are very close to Pasolini's disillusioned last movie, Saló).It is common to hear that Chaucer must have rolled over in his grave after this movie was released. But if you try to understand The Canterbury Tales in the context of Chaucer's attitude towards love in his (other) literary works, you will probably find that Chaucer would resemble to Pasolini alias Mr Chaucer ends the film with writing 'Here end the Canterbury Tales, told for the mere pleasure of their telling, Amen'.