This beautifully filmed production embodies a surreal and, at times, nightmarish quality. Rather than simply dramatizing Coleridge’s poem, the program draws a parallel between the author’s own tormented life and his story of the Ancient Mariner, doomed to wander the earth to tell his horrible tale of killing, punishment, and redemption. While his more stable friend, Wordsworth, grows in fame and literary stature, Coleridge agonizes over his own increasing opium use. This reality creates a context for the poem in which ultimately both the Mariner and Coleridge plumb the depths of human despair and are redeemed by the realization that “what we do to the least living thing we do to ourselves.” A BBC Production. (57 minutes)