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the audience applauded

Good concept, poorly executed.

Beautiful, moving film.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

I would have accepted this movie for what it is, if it were to be from the 40s or 50s. But it is hard to believe this ludicrous piece of nonsense was made in the 70s. I was not present in that generation, but after watching enough movies from the time before my birth; I can tell for certain the craft of film-making had come a long way by the year 1974 than this movie implies. I have no clue which aspect of film-making the director was working on because every aspect of it looks clumsy and unplanned. There's no composition or framing whatsoever, the acting is laughably amateurish, the blocking complexity is that of a kid playing with his toys. Its not uncommon to see such wooden direction styles in the period before the 40s when film-making was still in its novice stage. But to pull something like this in the 70s and get the Grand Prix prize in 1974 is puzzling to say the least for a movie buff born in the 90s. Which happens to be the same year the absolutely magnificent "The Conversation" got the PalmDOr and the very underrated "The Last Detail" was also competing for the same.

Truth is not in only one dream but in many dreams. At once treachery in this sun-crashed world. Treachery of a slave who chooses her master. Treachery of a Christian who steals the slave for some Moslem buyer who had been refused by her. Treachery of the desert that forces these people to move around to find water for men and cattle alike. Treachery of love itself that is always at first sight, has little to do with discriminating between boys and girls, women and men. Strangely enough for a long time we believe love is nothing but desire and lust leading to suffering and deception, disappointment. And yet we are to find there is a lot more beyond that simple carnal, though also spiritual, appeal, attraction. There is attachment, an attachment that has to do with fate, a curse, a malediction, happiness. Happiness beyond fate, the curse, the malediction of treachery, vengeance, cruelty. On the track of Zumurud, the stolen slave. And Nordine, her chosen master, is the light of the Lord, the light of that happiness. There is a Song of Song atmosphere here when Nordine does not look after his own vineyard and his Zumurud is stolen again, kidnapped by some other man, a Kurd mind you, after the Christian, and his forty acolytes. The Christian ends up on a cross. The Kurd ends up on a cross. And we are delving into the side-tracks of this main story. There is nothing one can do against the will of God. Then more dramatic stories are going to be told, twisted into and around one another with dramas and more dramas all ordered and commanded by fate no one can evade. The story of the tragic love of Aziz and Aziza destroyed or made impossible by Budur who will end up causing Aziza's death and will castrate Aziz. The story of Aziz and Tadji and the decoration of a pavilion in Queen Dunya's garden, the queen who hates men, and the love that will come out of it. The Stories of the two workers, Shahzaman and Yunan, two dramatic stories of fate that enslaves and victimizes human beings, and their choice to drop everything, sons of Kings that they are, and become mendicants to serve God. A vision of God who is totally absent. Fate is not the decision of God but seems to be some kind of force of its own and the only way to compensate for that necessarily negative fate is to dedicate one's life to God. God is abstract. God has no church, no clergy. God only has these mendicants who suffer for his glory, for his rule. Man is taken between the pagan acceptance of fate and the Godlike attitude that leads to becoming a permanent pilgrim on earth. This power of God is captured in civilizations we understand to be Moslem or Hindu, often at the crossing point between old millennium-long beliefs that edge on superstitions and an abstract notion of God that requires absolute submission. The end of the film hence is completely different because it deals with the second, happy and final meeting between Nordine and Zumulud, between the master and the slave turned king in a love that starts with obedience and ends with passion. In this film Pasolini does not follow a painter, nor a story teller, but a poet, the Arabian poet who speaks of love and the success of love beyond all kinds of difficulties, traps, snares, a love that he embodies in a man and a woman, but that is constantly shown as being ambiguous, limitless, without any boundaries. His vision of the mixing of these two cultures, Semitic Islam and Indo-Aryan Hinduism (note it cannot be Buddhism because of the belief in God) is exhilaratingly fascinating. These Arabian Nights are definitely reflecting that meeting point but here Pasolini makes it a metaphor and a parable of the future of humanity that can only find love, life, a reality in the joining of the various traditions of spirituality that humanity has produced in its divine desire to understand and explain what was a perfect mystery for it, viz. life itself that can only be measured and appreciated when death comes.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

This very unique rendering of the Arabian Nights was filmed in natural locations in places as diverse as Ethiopia, Yemen, Iran and Nepal. The beauty of the landscapes is breathtaking, and makes the film an incredible voyage into time and space. Please note that this movie is an explicitly erotic one, but one tends to forget that the original Arabian Nights were very much so, and not fairy tales for children. It is certainly difficult to make an erotic masterpiece, as sexual content does not make a movie better. It rather tends generally to get crassly exploitative, and rarely beautiful. There is plenty of sex in this movie, but it is depicted in a natural, feel-good and intelligent way that is rarely to be found elsewhere.By the way, this movie should be seen again at the light of nowadays controversies. The Muslim world was far from always having been puritanical, and the sensual poetry that is rendered here is not Pasolini's invention. It is the faithful reflection of a hedonistic Orient that produced for instance poet Omar Khayyam as well as the original Arabian Nights. It is also a film about love, the most gripping part being the tragic and mysterious tale of Aziz and Aziza.Don't expect any Aladdin or Ali Baba stuff here, you already figured this out. Anyway, it would be impossible to make a complete film version of the Arabian Nights, so this work just shows a few excerpts combined together (the Italian title is in in fact "the flower of the Arabian Nights"). However, the trend of the tales is respected in the sense that all the stories are interwoven into one another and eventually come back to the original plot. The atmosphere of ancient Orient is rendered in a style that is lightyears away from usual clichés, and in an incredibly authentic and physical way. At times, you get the illusion that you feel the blazing sun on your skin, that you can smell the exotic vegetation, the sand, the noisy bazaars full of spices. There are a few flaws though : visible cutting, unadapted stances of classical music. The use of non professional actors was common for Pasolini, and gives a pleasant feeling of naive freshness.The movie is probably Pasolini's best, and belongs to the "trilogy of Life" that included "the Decameron" and "the Canterbury tales", also literature classics. But much more than the two others, this movie is an ode to life. Hard to suspect that Pasolini's last work would be an ode to death. "Arabian Nights" belongs to the golden age of Italian cinema, that was incredibly prolific and innovative in the sixties and seventies.All in all, not a family movie, but if you are curious and open-minded, get ready for a beautiful journey.

Seeing Pasolini's version of the Arabian Nights reminded of Petersens masterpiece Neverending Story(the 1984 original). Like in the Neverending Story the power of the mind,of fantasy,of hope is not an abstraction but an unlimited,almost almighty force. An adult never ending story,due to its eroticism,but the erotic scenes and situations only add more mystery and beauty to this film. Eroticism,but not only sexuality,affection,love,passion appear as the ultimate initiating journey,as quest for beauty and ideal. However the film is much more intellectual than erotic,while the protagonists(some of whom are the same from Il Decamerone),mainly amateurs,apparently lack sexual magnetism.But this is where Pasolini's genius is asserted:the endless beauty of this film and its characters is not an outer one-body language,the force of expressions,the deep symbolism are to be slowly,carefully and voluptuously discovered... This film enthralls,fascinates and,at the same time,boosts the intellect.With every scene,every moment passing you find yourself more and more captured by something like a barbaric religion,oriental wisdom,a drug,a poem by Omar Khayyam,an exotic work of art or...just a strange succession of adventures from the Arabian Nights. Filligrane,indefinable,bizarre-both sexual and platonic love are described in this way;as the crucial adventure in everyone's life,the ultimate gateway to perfection,immortality-but not in the sense of procreation(rather the aesthetic&ecstatic beauty transcends everything);a religion of the purest pantheistic sort(Divinity is in everything and trough the few moments of ecstasy man can surpass the boundaries between simple mortals and eternal values,in strike of inspiration brought up by love and passion,both not in the strictly fleshly,human,commonplace sense of the word). Pasolini's vision of the Orient is highly personal and anything else but stereotypical(Ancient Rome in Fellini's Satyricon,Middle Ages in the films of Tarkovski or Ken Russel don't always reflect historical truth like a schoolbook,yet they depict a highly artistic,metaphorical vision of these ages and places,historically inaccurate,but artistically more accomplished&valuable than the dull historical truth);it is a fantastic space beyond good and evil,yet not Utopian(it doesn't necessarily exclude violence and cruelty,yet not in a commercial b-movie thriller/horror style,just as a touch to complete the force and depth of several images and situations. Irrespective of his homosexuality Pasolini doesn't only understand heterosexuality,this film gives the impression that he also intensely relishes it with every breath.This man feels heterosexuality!!!! Less entertaining than Il Decamerone(which,is not a less deep and meaningful film than this),intricate,sometimes difficult to follow,unceremonious yet uplifting,mysterious like love and sexuality(or at least our ideal projection of it)itself. Pasolini should have named his trilogy of life the trilogy of unlimited desire,unlimited passion or unlimited fantasy. Because like in the Neverending Story,the power of fantasy,ideal and passions seams in this film the source of life itself(and even a higher,evolved&idealistic form of life on another,more intense level).