A young man buys a slave in an Arabian market and falls in love with her. She is abducted and while pursuing her, many erotic tales are told to him. This Pasolini's version of `Arabian Nights' is very reasonable, but I do not understand how this movie won a special prize in Cannes 1974. In my opinion, it is a forgettable film, highly recommended for the gay community due to the quantity of scenes with frontal male nudity, but which deserves to be watched once, because of the `trademark' Pasolini. The location where it was filmed is the best this movie can offer. In Brazil, this movie is not available on VHS or DVD; I saw it yesterday, on cable television, in a Pasolini's festival along this week. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `As 1001 Noites de Pasolini' (`The 1001 Nights of Pasolini)'

Pier Paolo Pasolini's third epic show of his ¨trilogy of life¨ series , based on 10 bawdy tales and riding out of the magic and splendor from Orient . This is a peculiar rendition of various stories from 1001 Nights written by an unknown autor . An explicit adaptation of classy portmanteu with adequate sets , gorgeous photography , humor and interwoven with strong sexual scenes . This Arabian Nights emerges as a marvelously relaxed and open puzzle of the interlinked tales dedicated to the multiplicity of truth amid a welter of sexual exhibitionism . The tales revolve around slaves , Kings , Queens , demons , love , loss and atonement . And representing an enjoyable life vision behind its humorous facade . As a lot of Arabian Nights tales were adapted , most notably : Set in ancient Arabia, there a youth comes to fall in love with a slave named Zumurrud (Ines Pellegrini) who selected him as her master . As Nur Ed Din (Franco Merli) is chosen by an attractive slave girl to be her new master . After a foolish error causes their separation, he travels in search for her . Later on , she is abducted and subsequently she becomes a wealthy queen and while they must search for each other . Stories are told within stories ; and various other travelers recount their own tragic , surprising , fantastic and romantic experiences . Dealing with travels , supernatural beings , an unfortunate lover (Ninetto Davoli) whose love results in terrible consequences , a nasty demon (Franco Citti) and the whims of destiny.

This Pier Paolo Pasolini's Tales of the Arabian Nights is an acclaimed , if sexually explicit retelling of a handful of Oriental tales . Here Pasolini has loosely modeled a recounting of 1001 Nights' famous tales that were previously adapted and very smoothly in Universal studios as ¨Arabian nights¨ (1942) by John Rawlins with John Hall , Maria Montez , though it nothing to do with this Pasolini film . This movie inspired by the ancient erotic and mysterious tales of Mid-West Asia ; however many tales don't make sense . Pasolini manages in his uninhibited fashion to capture the bawdy and anarchic spirit of far countries . This is episodic romp in which Pier Paolo is up to his old tricks satirizing social habits , religion , lower classes and throwing in liberal doses of love and life . It yields an engrossing array of liberating , mysterious and profound moments . However , the sights of the interminable assembly of seemingly ugly villagers Pasolini picked up as extras can be a bit embarrassing . As well as the endless sex scenes and bad taste can be a little intimidating . By the time these escenes were considered obscene , and some images deemed blasphemous. It was initially banned in Italy , and many other countries for several years . The best episodes are the followings : include stories of an innocent young man who falls for a gorgeous slave , another young man who becomes enraptured by a mysterious woman on his wedding day, and when Zumurrud , a slave turned monarch , after her drag wedding amid delightfully conspiratorial laughter reveals her true sexual identity to her diminutive and equally charming bride and another main story concerning a man who is determined to free a woman from a demon . This ¨Arabain Nights¨ is adorned by beautiful cinematography by Giuseppe Ruzzolini , and shot on location in several countries as Nepal , Zabid, Yemen ,Yazd, Iran , Mesjed-e-Imam, Esfahan, Iran , Mesjed-e Shah : Zumurrud's palace, Esfahan, Iran , San'a, Yemen , Eritrea ,Ethiopia Shibam,Wadi Dhar , Rock Palace , Yemen , Hanuman Dhoka, Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal and Laparo Film Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy . Evocative production design and art direction by Dante Ferreti , and enjoyable score by Ennio Morricone ; equally , there are lots of nudism : more male than female , homoeroticism and disagreeable scenes . Pasolini's film career would then alternate distinctly personal and often scandalously erotic adaptations of classic literary texts . As his first intallment of his trilogy of life titled Decameron was followed by Tales of Canterbury (1971) : the trilogy's weak point based on Godofredo Chaucer tales and finally the third ¨The Arabian nights¨ featuring 10 of the old Scherezade favorites .

The motion picture lavishly produced by Alberto Grimaldi was well directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini , it has rarely been seem in a great number of countries after its release in 1975 by United Artists , and being ludicrously cut by the censor and insanely dubbed . Pasolini was member of the Italian Communist Party from 1947 to 1949 and he was expelled because of his homosexuality. He was also a poet, a painter , actor and a novelist. He frequently casts Franco Citti , Ninetto Davoli , Franco Merli and Ines Pellegrini and non-professional actors as in Arabian nights . In his movies he shows his own more personal projects, expressing his controversial views on Marxism, atheism, fascism and homosexuality . His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life of a pimp in the slums of Rome caused a sensation . He was arrested in 1962 by his contribution to the portmanteau film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963) . It might have been expected that his next film, Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) , here Paolo presented the Biblical story in a totally realistic, stripped-down style, would cause a similar fuss but, in fact, it was rapturously acclaimed as one of the few honest portrayals of Christ on screen . Subsequently , he made a Greek rendition : Oedipus Rex (1967) . And other films as the Neorrealist Mamma Roma with Anna Magnani , Porcile , The Grim Reaper , Accatone , Il Bell' Antonio , That long night in , and , of course , ¨Trilogy of life¨. Finally , Salo or the 120 day of Sodom that was deemed extremely violent , obscene and Pasolini being judged , condemned and given a suspended sentence by the Italian courts , being a mercilessly grim fusion of the Marquis de Sade's story with Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy , showing the sinister connection between consumerism and Nazism. Pasolini was murdered in still-mysterious circumstances shortly after completing the film.

Whether or not you like some (or just respond positively to some) of Pier Paolo Pasolini's work, or you don't, will depend on how much one can take of provocative subject matter put forward in an upfront manner. For me, he's a director that can go both ways, be it completely muddled and pretentious (Teorema) or almost boring in its S&M tactics of twisted satire (Salo),or actually dramatically engaging (Mamma Roma),and he's never someone who takes the easy road. Arabian Nights is another one, as part of a 'trilogy' of films adapted from famous, erotically-laced works of stories that have scandalized for centuries (the others the Decameron and Canterbury Nights). Once again, Pasolini has a lot of people in his film that aren't actors, or even real extras- sometimes some people will just pop out, or a bunch of kids will run around, and they're plucked right from the scenery. If authentic, film fans, is what you want, Pasonili gives it, in all of the style of a guy out to shoot a documentary on the people in these settings and gets (pleasantly) sidetracked by a bunch of crazy-tragic stories of love and lust in the desert.

As if done in a pre-Pulp Fiction attempt at non-linear storytelling, we get the tale of Zumurrud (Ines Pellegini) and Nur ed din (Franco Merli),one a slave who is bought by the most innocent looking kid in the bunch of bidders. They fall in love, the wise young girl and naive grunt, but they get separated after she gets sold to another man. She escapes, but becomes the unwitting king after she is mistaken for a man. Meanwhile, her young little man is calling after her/him, and getting into his own trouble. Through this framework, we get other stories told of love lost and scrambled; a sad and silly story of a man who's engaged to his cousin, and is thwarted by a mysterious woman who gets his attention, which leads him down a path of semantics (yes, semantics, poetry-style) and sex, leaving his much caring cousin behind. Then there's the man who woos a woman who is under the ownership of a demon, and once their affair is discovered some unexpected things happen via the Demon (Franco Citti, maybe the most bad-ass character in the film despite the surreal-aspect of the showdown). And then one more story, which, hmm....

I could go on making descriptions, but then this wouldn't be much of a review of praise of the picture. Suffice to say it's one of Pasolini's strongest directed efforts, where he's surefire in his consistent usage of the hand-held lens, getting his actors to look sincere through dialog that is half ripped-from-the-pages and half with the sensibility of Pasolini as a poet (yes, I went there in the whole 'he's a poet' thing, but he is in a rough-edged and melodramatic timing and flow). He's also going for an interesting combo; neo-realist settings for a good chunk of the picture, set in and around real locations in areas that don't need much production design, and an epic sweep that includes many extras, some special effects at times (and how about that lion!),and extravagant costumes.

I also liked- if not loved- how Pasonili dealt with sex and more-so the human body itself. It would probably rightfully get an NC-17 if released today in America, and got an X when released in 1980. The dreaded 'thing' of a man is revealed about as often as a cut-away to a master shot of a building. Everything, in fact, is filmed frankly, without the style that tip-toes around the starkness of two people embraced and naked. But it's also not pornographic either; if anything Pasolini perhaps doesn't direct far enough with the sex, as one body just lays still on top of another. There's a specific intent to dealing with sexuality in this world that respects lust and desire from the original text without making it blatant- only in one big instance, involving the fate of the man from the cousin story (the one with Aziz I think) revels in the horror of sex that was delved tenfold in Salo. Add to this the exquisite score from Ennio Morricone, who enriches any scene his score pops up, as a mandolin strings away and the strings rise with just a hint of the sentimental. Without Morricone, in fact, it might not be as emotional a film, when need be.

And lest not forget Arabian Nights can be strangely comical, where Pasolini throws it back at the audience that he knows he's going (rightfully) into the surreal. Like with the story of the Demon and the fate of a man transformed as a chimpanzee, or the vision with the lion, or even the dialog in the pool with the three girls and the man, which is humorous while keeping a tongue-in-cheek. And there's even some good jokes to come out of the obvious step of having Zummurrud as the 'King' when it's clear as day from the Italian dubbing that he's the 'she', so to speak, as it stretches out into a final scene where lovers are united and things are as they should be, however much the director is thumbing his nose at power and sex and the dealings of the heart with organs. Arabian Nights probably couldn't be made today, but could anyone else but Pasolini make it anyway? There's daring in this film, and through the exotic exteriors and sets we see a filmmaker working along like there's nothing else to stop him, for better or worse. This time for the better.