A Masterpiece

We screen around 500 films a year and this still remains one of our all time favourites for so many reasons. We watched it again last night coming off of a DiCaprio binge (sparked by two screenings of Once Upon ATI Hollywood....) ending with the Revenant that called for something more homely and cheerful. It was a toss up between our new Bluray version of TLaT of C. Blimp or A Canterbury Tale. CLT finally won and I do not think would be improved with a Bluray upgrade but I am willing to be proved wrong Criterion Collection!

My wife and I both born in the UK shortly after the war, and lived in Kent but have been abroad for 30 years, are fascinated by English culture during the period leading up to, thru and after the war and how this is captured on film.

We have watched many propaganda films and ACT is by far the best but I suspect by the time of its release and which perhaps explains its lack of box office, the war was turning and people were thinking about post war Britain not only without Nazis but without the class system and more socialism, a world that the aristocracy was seeking to maintain as evidenced in Glorious 39.

I always thought that the Glueman subplot was to do with this. A misguided attempt to preserve (or stick with or hold together) what the village had and secondly the hunt for the perpetrator included to remind us of the rewards of persevering when all else had given up. In reality I suppose glue did not endanger life or property and had no other connotations other than mischief. The Police would probabaly have had more troubling things to worry about in those times and would have thought twice about accusing a magistrate unless the proof was nothing short of on film :-)

I guess the caravan is a metaphor that nothing stays the same; "anything with wheels has to keep moving" and we have lost ours for the time being but England was beginning to think about throwing out the old (coat).

I know while watching that I am likely being played, manipulated but love it nonetheless. The purpose was to remind us what we were fighting for, to keep going in the face of tyranny and of all the things that would be gone if we were to lose the war. The earlier This Happy Breed and so many others did the same (Their Finest is a great modern satirical take on the hypocrisy and manipulation of wartime propaganda).

The brilliant summer, the magnificent countryside, the quaint and idyllic country folk, the English traditions, the magnificent history (that would be re-written), ancestors, the pomp of parades was all up for grabs. If that wasn't enough, righteousness was also on our team as evidenced by a plot entwined with pilgrimage, to a great place of worship, sacred music and the halo surrounding Dennis Price on the train.

If there was any doubt too in the minds of Americans that this was worth fighting for here's one of your own enjoying the life and realising that this is part of his history too - we even treat wood the same. Superb imagery. The devastated town of Canterbury presented a taste of what was to come if we took our eye off the ball. With the cathedral blessings came the reward for perseverance.

A poster described it as "England keen to protect what it had"; absolutely right but more correctly what it thought it had or what it thought it would have liked to have had. Where every person in authority was benevolent and everyone else was well intentioned and where eventually those pesky base emotions are overcome for the good of all.

A superb choice of players, beautifully crafted and sentimental in a way that doesn't seem out of place even today. We are introducing our grown children to ACT to get their thoughts and of course, have fallen into the P&P rabbit hole for a few weeks.