Pasolini’s ARABIAN NIGHTS

OUR MAXIMALIST MYTHOLOGIES SERIES CONTINUES with exotic tales of utopias and demons, hidden treasures, love lessons, illicit pleasures and magic! Pier Paolo Pasolini traveled to Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Yemen and Iran for this cinematic adaptation of erotic stories told by Scherazade in the legendary 1001 Nights!

Arabian Nights (1974, 130 mins), *Mature audiences only, please.

“The truth is not revealed in one dream, but in many…” The final and most visually spectacular of Pasolini’s “Trilogy of Life”, this ambitious, globetrotting production breathtakingly showcases the landscapes of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nepal, and Yemen, to spin stories told by Scherazade in 1001 Nights in the spirit of their original telling. A multiplicity of interlocking tales of sexual desire, gender masquerade, vaulting ambition and cruel punishment, but in place of theology, there’s magic (including a homage to The Thief of Bagdad!) Stories of princes and demons, hidden treasures, love lessons, illicit pleasures and mysterious deaths are framed by the saga of a runaway slave girl Zumurrud (Ines Pellegrini) who, mistaken as the first man to emerge from the desert, is hailed and adorned as “king” of the great walled city -while her distraught young lover Nur Er Din (Franco Merli) sets out in search of her.

Pasolini roots this magic carpet fantasy in the kind of realism that he consistently drew from the unique landscapes and faces of his largely nonprofessional, native casts. The tales are marbled throughout with the joyful sexuality and unabashed nudity with which Pasolini approaches the Arab proverb “To the pure, all things are pure.” British critic Tony Rayns called this “Pasolini’s most beautiful film, and a triumphant vindication of the entire Trilogy of Life.” The epic was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival.

OUR MAXIMALIST MYTHOLOGIES SERIES INCLUDES:

THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1924) w/ Live Pipe Organ Score by Jeff Rapsis! Friday, August 28th

Pasolini’s ARABIAN NIGHTS (1974), Sunday, August 30th, Doors 7pm

Fellini’s SATYRICON, Saturday, September 26th, Doors 7pm