Pasolini's Canterbury Tales

Pasolini's I Racconti di Canterbury (1972) is a kind of continuation of his Decameron (1971) and prefigures his Arabian Knights (1974). I loved both of those movies, and I think part of my problem with Canterbury is that it doesn't really do anything new with the formula. Mind you, I saw Arabian Nights before I saw Canterbury Tales, and I might have felt differently about that movie if I had seen that third, but I don't think so. There's something... I don't know... disconnected about this one in comparison with the other two. We never spend enough time with any one story to really connect with the characters.

Or maybe it's the dubbing. I know this is very typical of Italian films from this period, but it's truly egregious here. Hugh Griffith and many other actors are obviously speaking English, but their voices come out speaking a decidedly disconnected Italian. Sometimes the mood of the words doesn't even match what the actors are doing on the screen. I don't know. It really bugged me.

Ninetto Davoli's appearance is a high point of the film, of course, and there are plenty of really delightful sequences, so I am not really complaining, and I liked it well enough. I just loved The Decameron and Arabian Nights so much, and this one is not as good.

The movie's final sequence, though, in which a greedy monk is led into Hell and meets the devil, who shits out other friars, is hilarious, absurd, and delightful. It's a wonderfully sacrilegious way to end the movie and a stark contrast to the beautifully sacred ending to The Decameron.