I realize that Pasolini is considered to be one of the great (albeit controversial) film-directors of the 20th century, so it feels a bit like sacrilege to criticize some of his movies. But in this case I cannot help it: his Canterbury Tales is in my view more an ego-trip in which the director lives out his personal fantasies than a coherent movie. Even taken into consideration the fact that the subject is a loose bundle of tales, one would expect a filmmaker to see this as a challenge and try to construe something of a general cohesive storyline. Instead we see here a succession of fragmented tits and bits, mostly without head nor tail, seamlessly flowing from one into the other, with at many times unfathomable meaning or served as overtures to an intended anecdotal tale but without anything like the expected punch. As objective audience, without knowing anything of Pasolini's agenda on this movie, I would say that he put most, if not all of his efforts into the visual aspects and way too little into the writing.
It doesn't help that the acting is mostly poor and amateurish, and everyone either rattles their extensive Italian lines (obviously dubbed, often in bad lip-sync) in high pitched and loud quarrelsome tones, or we see people for minutes in silent close-up or aimlessly running to and fro. And there is hardly any musical score in this movie, except for the occasional music-making as part of the background, many scenes take place in strange, almost alienating dead-silence.
So is there nothing to praise? Well, to me the enjoyment here lies mainly in the images, with extensive amounts of extras in an extravaganza of costumes, all filmed in dazzling colours. And in the boldness of the use of nudity and sex, in a movie from 1972 mind you, and Pasolini managed to get away with it, earning with it (although I cannot for the life of me fathom the motivation of the jury) the prestigious Golden Bear in Berlin.
But to me a sequence of colourful, sexually defiant but bad-acted and incoherent scenes doesn't automatically stand for a good movie.
It doesn't help that the acting is mostly poor and amateurish, and everyone either rattles their extensive Italian lines (obviously dubbed, often in bad lip-sync) in high pitched and loud quarrelsome tones, or we see people for minutes in silent close-up or aimlessly running to and fro. And there is hardly any musical score in this movie, except for the occasional music-making as part of the background, many scenes take place in strange, almost alienating dead-silence.
So is there nothing to praise? Well, to me the enjoyment here lies mainly in the images, with extensive amounts of extras in an extravaganza of costumes, all filmed in dazzling colours. And in the boldness of the use of nudity and sex, in a movie from 1972 mind you, and Pasolini managed to get away with it, earning with it (although I cannot for the life of me fathom the motivation of the jury) the prestigious Golden Bear in Berlin.
But to me a sequence of colourful, sexually defiant but bad-acted and incoherent scenes doesn't automatically stand for a good movie.