Arabian Nights [Il Fiore Delle Mille E Una Notte] (1974)

Arabian Nights [Il fiore delle mille e una notte] (1974)

Of these three earthy explorations of sensuality and sexuality across the classic or medieval world, this one failed to hold my attention the most. Perhaps that while it’s inflected with humor and heartbreak, the most immediate object of fixation is sex itself. Sex positivity is a good thing, and certainly something that the world probably wasn’t quite ready for with such frankness and explicit nature at the time of release. But there was just so much to improve upon here. An early episode features two older folks giving a young couple roofies and observing each partner essentially take advantage of the other in their sleep. It’s handled with a cheeky nature that undermines the violation. Elsewhere, Ninetto Davoli, again a naif and a fool, uses his ex-fiancee’s advice to get with some mysterious woman to whom he is attracted, ignoring the dreadful toll it’s having on his cousin/would-be wife. The flow of the stories is a little more disjointed than the other two in the trilogy, though it is more ambitious in its structuring, folding stories around one another or bringing out old timers. Pasolini’s horniest movie, but a miss for me.

And yet, in spite of it all, Zumurrud is perhaps this trilogy’s most complete and interesting character. She appears throughout, a dominant presence even when being sold as a sex slave. She won’t stop reading her potential masters for filth and essentially picks her own buyer, taking the impressionable Nur-Ed-Edin under her wing in a sardonic way. When selected as ruler of a city, she goes in full drag king attire for much of the film, using the position to her advantage and doing away with her enemies. Not the most original or fleshed-out character, but it’s nice to have a recurring anchor point within the films, especially one with such a memorable personality.

Pasolini loves his non-professional actors (with some legal exceptions shooting natives in Yemen and Iran, none of that pesky nudity allowed), but good lord did that Tibetan bell ringing get out of hand. For a beat it felt like a Varda film, the director noticing some quirk of local behavior and folding it into the film.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'Zumurrud'.

Erection joke.

A scene takes place without any nudity in it.

BIG DRINK

A price is named.

Someone falls asleep at a bad time.