A CANTERBURY TALE

Strange and wonderful, this beloved Powell / Pressburger classic is a profoundly personal journey to Powell’s bucolic birthplace of Kent, England. Set amid WWII’s tumult, yet with a rhythm as delicate as a lullaby, the film follows three modern-day incarnations of Chaucer’s pilgrims—a melancholy “landgirl,” a plainspoken American GI and a resourceful British sergeant—waylaid in the English countryside en route to the mythical town and forced to solve a bizarre village crime. Very nearly plotless, A CANTERBURY TALE represents one of the few times the narrative cinema has approached the lyrical ideal.