Il fiore delle mille e una notte (Flower of the Arabian Nights) (Arabian Nights) poster & wallpaper

Ninetto Davoli, Franco Citti, Tessa Bouché

In this film 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...( read more  read more... ). 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.

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76% liked it

1,455 ratings

Unrated, 131 min.

Directed by: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Release Date: January 1, 1974

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Flixster Reviews (69)

  • RThornhill
    June 3, 2009
    RThornhill
    recommended by rojastortu.
  • rojastortu
    June 3, 2009
    rojastortu
    Such a fascinating film that depicts a world without any sexual prejudices, away from what the consuming habits that reign over the capitalist countries have formed in our minds, as well as many other social tendencies. Pasolini really was against any conventional ideas and was n...( read more)ever afraid to tell what he think is wrong with the world. Slowly, Pasolini is becoming one of my favorite directors of all time.
  • ahhh1989
    May 28, 2009
    ahhh1989
    My second favorite Pasolini film!
  • Budgeburgess
    April 14, 2009
    Budgeburgess
    One of Pasolini's trilogy of explorations of the medium of storytelling and spoken narrative ("Canterbury Tales" and "Decameron" are the other pair), "Arabian Nights" is the most integrated and coherent of the three. It follows a theme of lust, love, and loss. A slave girl, Zumar...( read more)ud, is empowered to choose her own master - she chooses a youth, gives him the money to buy her, and the pair of them set up home together.

    Only he loses her through greed and naivety. He sets out to find her, and the film follows their many adventures and the adventures of those people whose lives they touch. The film is presented in a series of vignettes rather than as a single storyline. In Burton's translation of the 1001 Arabian Nights, King Shahryar believes that all women are inherently unfaithful, and murders each new wife after the wedding night until Scheherazade enters his life. Each night she buys her life by recounting another story, enrapturing the king.

    There is no Scheherazade here, but themes of betrayal and greed run through the film. In the main, the setting is in the desert or Arab villages rather than a king's palace. It is a celebration of the beauty of youth and their innocent sexual energy. In one vignette, an old man seduces three youths, in another, a caravan train picks up a young man and young woman and introduces them to one another.

    The acting is amateurish and clumsy, but that enhances the eroticism in places - there is none of the confident, rehearsed choreography of the professional here. And yet the sex is passionless, static, unreal. This is a manipulative world where the weak and the naïve are exposed to others who will routinely lie, cheat, steal, and use one another. This is a world in which men have to have love explained to them by women. This is a world of animal instincts mediated and civilised by the use of language.

    The visual imagery is stunning, though much of the setting is either desert or bleached out, white or sandy buildings. Only an occasional splash of colour is permitted. The imagery, then, is of an architectural quality, the settings framing the litheness and suppleness of the youthful human body. Again, the eroticism is understated but implicit.

    And the characters who pass across the screen tell tales or recite poetry. The tales flow into vignettes or little sub-plots, then drift back to the main theme again. This is the story-telling tradition as popular communication and as explanation. The story is told that ... and people live awaiting the story to unfold, waiting for the moment when the story comes true. The story is told that a man shall cross the desert and become king of the walled city ... .

    The beautiful Zumarud finally finds herself mistaken for a man and is made king of the desert city. Men are now her slaves and she has absolute power. This is the absolute power which Scheherazade strove to wield, the power to enrapture, to capture the minds and imaginations of men. Only Scheherazade slaved to capture the king's attention and love by telling fantasies - Zumarud enslaves men by fulfilling their own fantasies. Women, it seems, are not unfaithful - men are deceived by their own thoughts and expectations.

    Pasolini creates a story within a story within a story. Each person has a story to tell, but how many others will listen? Are the stories we tell truth or fiction? Can we recognise our own truths? Are the stories meant to inform, to entrance, to entertain, or to deceive. For ultimately, of course, Scheherazade deceives and manipulates her husband as she instrumentally sets out to save her own life by telling him stories. Who can blame her?

    Pasolini's "Arabian Nights" is a sumptuous, meandering narrative which will entertain and amuse.
  • malacaynomuerto
    February 5, 2009
    malacaynomuerto
    La forma particular de ver las cosas de Pasolini es lo que hace esta película tan buena bueno eso y algunas cosillas mas que son evidentes
  • bbliumis
    January 27, 2009
    bbliumis
    good film but nothing special.
  • peteferrara
    October 5, 2008
    peteferrara
    probably one of the best movies to watch when you're high.
  • lothda
    May 1, 2008
    lothda
    Dreamlike and haunting, like the original tales themselves.
  • daghka
    March 15, 2008
    daghka
    Probably my favourite of Pasolini so far, I don't yet and can't really make up my mind. Has that Pasolini of making films, narrative that is old-fashioned and yet very cinematic. Pasolini is one of few directors that is unashamed of disliking this world and knowing the value of c...( read more)inema as an art form, making sure what he does can never be replicated elsewhere.

    To add on, this is a long film, but every minute is savoured beautifully and nicely and it is all worth it.
  • martinkalwill
    December 20, 2007
    martinkalwill
    Pasolini is a provocateur, all hi beauty is a statement againfscism in al his forms. In this movie the visual "magical simplicity" of his shots and scenes match perfectly the irony and magic of this annonimus "old as time " stories

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