This magical wartime fable creates a fairytale as an antidote for war. Plot and narrative drive is foregone- the quest for the 'glueman' is simply a device to bring the characters together- and instead is created an ode to the spritual in man, as necessary in wartime as at any other time. Three young and diverse persons arrive by train in Kent when, about to go their separate midnight ways, the female in their company has glue poured in her hair by an unseen assailant. For the rest of the film they pool resources to discover the wrongdoer while finding themselves sucked in by the countryside of England and the lure of Canterbury. The film is flawed, but only with the flaws of one you love- the casting, notably the American soldier, is frequently untrained, and the dialogue doesn't always hit the poetic heights of the visuals, but these are asides and nothing more than asides, because away from being the greatest essay in visual poetry Britain has ever produced, the film whispers also profound things about modern day life, about our links with the past, about the essential oneness of all life. In the Canterbury showdown all wishes come true and all hearts are filled, and that's as it should be for a film which is at heart a children's story for grown-ups, but there was never a necessity for the film's ends to be tied; it's a beautiful dream rather than a drama. One has to remind oneself at the end that no, actually this isn't how people always are, that life isn't always like this, and that is a measure of the film's success.
Review of A Canterbury Tale
