Customer Reviews

Arabian Nights [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My first experience with Pasolini was his "Salo" movie and it was a mixed experience I am still contemplating. However, "Arabian Nights" was my second outing with this director and I found this film to be an enchanting, atmospheric work of art. This is what the real tales of the Arabian Nights must have resembled. No Hollywood glitz, no gilding of any lillies, only alluring scenery filled with lurid tales of love, lust, revenge and fulfillment. Really try to see this masterpiece! Next for me will be the "Decameron" and then, "Canterbury Tales". Thank you.

I've been recently watching this movie again and I was so glad that I went through the expense and bought this out of print DVD. This is the movie that is bigger that its genre, it is a poem indeed. This is the case with other films that are art and not just entertainment. I actually find Arabian Nights more exotic and romantic that Canterbury Tales, but I would not judge which is my favorite among the three of them (i.e. plus Decameron). Each has its own character and I believe Pasolini excelled in conveying that special air and mood that each book represents. I find Arabian Nights also the most melancholic and mysterious, and I think that it was Pasolini's goal, also. I wouldn't say that the people in this film are necessarily beautiful - Pasolini aesthetics are quite controversial and might not be universally accepted. This is the case with all his films. The incredible result, though, is that with non-professional actors and himself not having any cinematography education, he achieved the pinnacle of cinema art. For me, films like this is the same to cinema as Michelangelo's creations are to sculpture, and it is only incomprehensible how come that it's almost impossible to buy Pasolini's DVDs at a reasonable price, especially when looking at the mass production garbage that occupies shelves of video stores. The irony is that Pasolini was tormented by the same question about the role of crude and mindless entertainment being served from TV. I hope that despite everything, his art will live and win over people minds...Last advice for viewers - steer clear if you don't like "boring foreign movies with subtitles and without action". This is exactly it.

Don't listen to se people who says that this movie is not well-done and there's a bad acting. This is the poetique of Pasolini, one of the most intellectual writers-poets-directors- of Europe. Difficult to appreciate in a first moment, you will understand his kind of direction (poor and with non professional actors, a sort of refusal to the capitalistic cinema) probabily when you will read his books about his movie-theories. This is one of his best movies, but Salò is definitively the best, a summary of his controversial ideals (he was communist and catholic at the same time, and his little movie 'La Ricotta' was excommunicated by the Pope). His movies testify a tormented age of politics and ideals in Europe during the '60 and the '70.

Beautiful scenes of exotic, beautiful people and a wholesome, human approach to sexuality. Passolini allowed the landscape and the actors/actresses to speak for themselves rather than direct and stage his film to death. Relax and enjoy this film as a journey to distant lands with a more relaxed approach to life and storytelling.

Filmed in Yemen, Nepal and Morocco,this is a wonderful picture.The way the faces are filmed,the way sex is filmed(with a complete innocence),Pasolini filmed landscapes like a real painter.A masterpiece

Pasolni's third installment in his"Trilogy of Life" is a beautiful,hypnotic,sensuous art film!A true masterpiece of exotic eros.Filmed in Morroco,it tells severaltales from Sheherazade's "One Thousand and One Nights". Also, check out "TheDecameron" and "The Canterbury Tales".Recommended for adults only,and forlovers of bold,provocative cinema.

This film version keeps much of the eroticism in Sir Richard Burton's original translation, which previous movie treatments saw fit to water down... Great care was taken in the details: it was shot on location (Africa and the Middle East) and a dark skinned girl was cast as the princess... The acting is extremely good, and the stories connect in and out in intriguing fashion...

The film selects some of the more popular of the Arabian Nights stories, but intertwines them in strange ways... Like the original, many stories lead into other stories and again into others...

One of the most erotic sequences is when two supernatural beings decide to play a trick on a virginal girl and boy... The beings make each young person seduce the other while he or she is asleep... In another scene, one of the heroes finds himself in a pool with a group of very pretty, very nude Arabian women, who tease and tickle him into an intense joy...

This is Pasolini's third film in his "Trilogy Of Life" (the first two being "The Decameron" and "Canterbury Nights." This film was shot on location in Yemen, Persia, Nepal, Etiopia, and India. Pasolini's practice of using non-actors and real people really shines in this, the people are as real, and often as ugly and as desert-beaten as the buildings.

This film does present several tales of the "One Thousand Nights And A Night", but only someone who has read the unexpurgated 10-volume set would be familiar with The Tale of Ali Shar and Zumurud, the main story in this film, in which a Slave Girl gives a young man, Ali Shar, the funds to buy her, only to later lose her, and who spends the rest of the story searching for her. Don't look for Sinbad and Aladdin here, the several other stories are equally obscure to an American audience.

Be aware that this film is generally released in it's original Italian, without overdubbing. Such subtitles as exist on Region 2 and Region 1 & 4 combined editions may not contain English subtitles. Criterion has been proposing to release all three of Pasolini's "Trilogy Of Life" films, so the potential buyer might wish to wait for that edition to be released.

There is violence in this film. Animals were obviously killed. There is full frontal nudity of both sexes and of varying ages. The actor who plays Ali Shar doesn't appear to be more than 16, he delightedly has sex on-film with a woman 10 years older than he. Several times. This film wouldn't be allowed to be released in America in 2010, for the same reasons that Traci Lords early sex films are similarly banned. This film is not for Family Viewing. But if you are an open-minded consenting adult, this is a very accessible film from one of the geniuses of 60's & 70's Italian Cinema that truly classifies as "Art."

Pasolini ended his Trilogy of Life with 1974's Arabian Nights (Il fiore delle mille e una notte) in which he examined love in all its aspects. The film was inspired by the ancient erotic and mysterious tales of the Middle East .

The main story concerns an innocent young man who comes to fall in love with a slave who selected him as her master. After his foolish error causes their separation, he travels in search of her. Various other travelers who recount their own tragic and romantic experiences include stories of a young man who becomes enraptured by a mysterious woman on his wedding day, and a man who is determined to free a woman from a demon.

While I don't profess to have understood the entire film I can say that I was constantly amazed by the images that Pasolini created. Using ancient locations there is always something new to see on multiple viewings. The viewer has the feeling of seeing places that no longer exist. Somehow the classic stories feel right in this setting in a way that they don't in many of the American versions, The film takes on a dreamlike quality that is hard to explain.

The standard definition disc that I viewed was by Image Entertainment and presented the director's cut of the film in widescreen. The Italian soundtrack was easy to hear but the white subtitles were sometimes hard to read. There were no special features presented on the disc and considering the cost of the edition was somewhat disappointing.

The entire trilogy could use a serious restoration and a reasonably priced Region 1 edition would be quite welcome. Well worth seeing for the scenery alone it should not be missed by any serious film fan.

Pasolini's directing style might not suit everyone. Strange grinning actors, lingering scenes, but it was 'HIS' style and it interesting to watch. The locations filmed so long ago before tourists ruined then look medieval.

The whole film is rich in imagery.