Os Contos de Canterbury

This, even though it lacks a bit the wit and spirit of IL DECAMERON, which was funnier, it still manages to satisfy as you reach the end. Pasolini's perverted humor as well as some of his usual actors are here. There's full nudity, both male and female. Maybe here the erotic element is more intense so its less humorous, I am not sure. I suppose it will satisfy those who like Pasolini's humour like, say, IL DECAMERON.

The copy I saw had awful dubbing - Italian language- maybe it's bad sychronisation, or something else...

As far as I am concerned it is worth it alone for this special, absurd, perverted, surrealistic last scene, taking place in hell. It rulez! Some others scenes are awesome too! And of course there'e Pasolini evident dislike of church/religious dogmas.

If you're not easily offended and like old films, specially European ones, give it a try, IL DECAMERON as well.

As far as where this one sits on the film map, it's somewhere between Belle de Jour and Tinto Brass's Caligula.

The most important credit Pasolini's setting of the Canterbury Tales deserves is for its dismissal of the usual on-screen morality. Such candor seems essential to the nature of such a narrative (being much more appreciated than the stifled decadence of Keir Dullea's Marquis de Sade or the early Warhol/Morrissey efforts). This is most effective because the film also depicts the baseness and depravity of the late Middle Ages. Everyone's fornicating or trying to fornicate everyone else, with lots of potty humor thrown in just to make sure that it wouldn't be taken too seriously as a foray into art-house pretensions.

On all other counts, it's overblown and a bit sluggish, with an especially disappointing outcome au montage son. And non-professional actors are much less effective in adding a dimension of realism than they are in inducing a sense of self-mockery. The imagery is shamelessly ribald although not extreme, and the storyline is far from seamless. Far from Pasolini's best, although perhaps a good preparation for the far more intense Salo.

When I was going to see "Canterbury Tales", I knew Pasolini was infamous director who made crazy films, that weren't for everyone's taste.When I saw it. It was one of those movie experiences that change the way you see films. It's not that I loved this film, I don't see how I can use word "love" here. It's just that from the beginning to the end I couldn't believe my eyes. Sequence after sequence, the movie became one of the most original films I ever seen in my life. Wife having sex standing on her husband's shoulders, woman farting in the face of the young boy who loves her, drunken man, p***ing on dining people, giant ass, that defecates with demons, it's shocking, yes, but it's not the point. The point is,we believe every single thing we see on the screen. Of course, it's because Pasolini uses natural lightning, unprofessional actors, and partly because when there is fucking on the screen, it's not simulation, it's real f**king (what other film can be classified as "porn", and also have Oscar-winning costume designer in its credits?). But it's not the reason. I always admired Pasolini, because he was one of those people, who make others respect them, who have remained hip even twenty years after they are dead. And being this incredibly fascinating person, he could put part of the magic that made him the person he was into his movies.

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'.

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.

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