Jack Chambers’s final masterwork in his short but brilliant career, The Hart of London is a film of epic scope and a powerful statement about the thorny bond between life and death.

The core of the film revolves around newsreel footage of a hart (male deer) that wandered into London in 1954. This rather quaint encounter quickly turns ugly as we watch the animal’s capture and eventual slaughter in graphic detail.

Chambers’s insistent pairing of opposi­tional elements creates an experience rich in ambiguity while heightening one’s awareness of the dangers inherent in even the most wondrous of moments. A moving evocation of place and the circularity of life and death, The Hart of London is perhaps the most complete and profound summation of Chambers’s approach to art and percep­tion.

From Take One’s Essential Guide to Canadian Film and The Film Companion