Arabian Nights (1974)
Arabian Nights (1974)
A Film by Pier Paolo Pasolini
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 16:9 | 02:04:39 | 7,57 Gb
Audio: Italian, English - AC3 2.0 @ 320 Kbps (each) | Subs: English
Genre: Art-house, Fantasy
A Film by Pier Paolo Pasolini
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 16:9 | 02:04:39 | 7,57 Gb
Audio: Italian, English - AC3 2.0 @ 320 Kbps (each) | Subs: English
Genre: Art-house, Fantasy
The final part of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life was two years in the making. The locations - Yemen, Ethiopia, Iran and Nepal - form a rich, exotic backdrop to these tales of slaves and kings, potions, betrayrals, demons and, most of all love and lovemaking in all its myriad forms. Engrossing, mysterious, profound and liberating, Arabian Nights is an exquisitely dreamlike, sensuous and adult interpretation of the original folk tales, presented here in a beautiful new restoration.
IMDB
"Trilogy Of Life" by Pier Paolo Pasolini:
- The Decameron (1971)
- The Canterbury Tales (1972)
- Arabian Nights (1974)
Arabian Nights (1974)
Regarded as the high point of the trilogy by a wide margin, The Arabian Nights is certainly the most ambitious and visually impressive. Most of the same crew remained as Pasolini trotted his camera to Africa, Iran, India, and Nepal for a phantasmagorical journey through one of the most famous story collections of all time, and everyone outdoes themselves with a visual feast that ranks as the director's most optimistic achievement. Though much of the trademark eroticism and offbeat comedy remains here, the film is so much more than that and also features a strong linking narrative to pull it all together.
Arabian Nights (1974)
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While being sold at a slave market, the fiesty Zumurrud (Eyeball's Pellegrini) opts to become the property of a young, financially-lacking prince, Nur Ed Din (Merli, the future poster boy of Salo). The two immediately form a youthful bond, but she's abducted by one of her jilted would-be buyers, with her new master in pursuit. During their journey, Zumurrud must escape disguised as a man and is declared a king in another region, while her suitor becomes the love toy of three beautiful women where the main storytelling aspect comes into play (there's no Shahrazad in sight here, folks).
Arabian Nights (1974)
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The first major tale follows Aziz (Davoli), who rejects his fiancee when he falls in love with another woman but finds the heart's demands more treacherous than he imagined; a prince follows some criminals into an underground lair where he finds a beautiful girl at the nocturnal mercy of a red-haired demon (Citti) who makes some highly unusual demands; and naked royal Yunan (Sapienza) abandons ship and washes up on an island where a young boy lives in fear of being murdered. Other characters and fragments interact with the main story, which also involves a fantastical encounter with a lion and more than a few stunning vistas on display.
Arabian Nights (1974)
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The occasional special effects (including a brief flying scene with the demon) are hardly the focus here, as the natural locations and amateur actors give an entirely different take on this well-worm material which already inspired countless Sinbad and Aladdin movies. This is far removed from such family fare, restoring the original adult tone and sense of peril for what amounts to a celebration of the basics of humanity. While a handful of jolting moments of brutality (a dismemberment, a stabbing and an brief but heartstopping castration) foreshadow the terminal anguish of Salo, the tone here is dreamlike and affectionate, while the virtual abandonment of familiar actors results in an undeniable freshness and vitality. Also of note is the beautiful, diverse score by Ennio Morricone, who worked on the previous two films mainly adapting traditioanl music but gets to really shine here with a full score loaded with exotic, fascinating instrumentation.
Arabian Nights (1974)
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Just as plagued by shoddy transfers through much of the video era, The Arabian Nights finally soars in the BFI edition which looks light years better. Gone are the ugly brown and orange color schemes which made all the actors appear to be covered in dirt; the film now looks fresh, colorful and vivid, and the detail culled from the transfer from the original negative results in countless new details in every shot invisible even in theatrical screenings. Some noise reduction was apparently applied to overcome some damage to the element, but there's enough natural film grain here to still give the impression of watching a top-drawer theatrical screening.
Arabian Nights (1974)
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This version also addresses an issue which has plagued the film since its release: the running time. A screening of Pasolini's first cut at Cannes was 155 minutes, but producer Alberto Grimaldi persuaded him to trim it down by 25 minutes. A reel of deleted footage clocking in at 21 minutes was subsequently issued on a French DVD, but it's presented here as well with Morricone's score filling in for the lost audio. The film's overlapping structure (which led to frequent comparisons to The Saragossa Manuscript) dictated that a story couldn't be simply chopped out; instead, the majority of the cut footage is parallel action during the Princess Dunya segment (the penultimate story) which then continues with an imprisoned Prince Tagi escaping into a small but interesting battle scene in the mountains and encountering his beloved again in drag.
Arabian Nights (1974)
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It's obvious why this was cut as it could be seen as redundant in the scheme of the entire film (we've already spent plenty of time with the whole king-in-disguise story thread), but at least some of the scenes should have been left to close out the Dunya story more smoothly than its abrupt finish in the final cut. In any case, it's great to finally have this footage back in any form; the remaining time discrepancy may also be due to the original intermission (which came right after the aforementioned castration scene, ensuring some more sensitive viewers may have opted to not return for the rest of the film); the break is missing here but can be seen on the old Water Bearer transfer if you're curious.
Arabian Nights (1974)
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As for the language aspect, the Italian track has been the most widely-seen for years and is usually regarded as the most legitimate one, even if only a handful of the performers were actually speaking it. Everyone else is speaking English or something else entirely with post-production looping creating the entire soundtrack no matter how you watch it. The alternate English version here synchs up about as often as the Italian one, but the subtitled version feels more poetic and organic to the film as a whole. Completists may want to check out both, but newcomers should definitely experience it in Italian first. Given the length of the film and high bitrate it occupies on the disc, the only extra here besides the deleted scenes (admittedly one heck of a deal sweetener) is the original theatrical trailer, which again pushes the salacious sequences ahead of the artistic ones.
Arabian Nights (1974)
Special Features:
- Alternative English-language version
- Original trailer
- Deleted sequences
Many Thanks to Original uploader.
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