ARABIAN NIGHTS (1974)

Following THE DECAMERON and THE CANTERBURY TALES in his Trilogy of Life, Pier Paolo Pasolini jettisons the original overarching narrative of the storyteller Scheherazade and simply dramatizes a handful of the tales with a different framing story. At a slave market, a woman named Zummurrud (aka the Lady of the Moons) is being sold with the unusual caveat that she can choose her buyer. A blue-eyed ruffian named Barsum bids on her, but when she sees the handsome young Nur Ed Din, she gives him the money to buy her. After making love, she makes a small cloth tapestry and gives it to Nur Ed Din to sell, warning him not to sell it to a blue-eyed man. Of course, he sells it to Barsum who kidnaps Zummurrud, setting in motion Nur Ed Din's search for her. Disguised as a man, she winds up at a city in the desert where the king has just died, and their ritual is to crown the next man who arrives at their gate. She is made king, and at the end of the movie, Nur Ed Din is led by a magical lion to the city where Zummurrud recognizes him, has him brought to her and when she commands him to have sex with her, she reveals her identity. Happy ending for both.

But the bulk of the film is taken up with the telling of a number of tales and tales within tales all involving love or lust. None of the more familiar Thousand and One Nights stories (Sindbad, Aladdin, Ali Baba) are told—though forty thieves are mentioned in passing as gang rapists. One story involves a prince in disguise who discovers a woman being held underground by a demon who comes and goes as he pleases. After sex, the prince leaves but forgets his shoes. The demon arrives, searches for and finds the prince, and takes him back to the girl. When the prince refuses the demon's demand that he kill the girl, the demon chops her up in pieces and turns the prince into a monkey. (This segment features one of the few special effects in the movie, the demon and the prince flying through the air.) In another, a character named Aziz leaves his intended for a woman, Budur, he has only glanced at through a window. Eventually, they have sex (including with a phallus-shaped arrow) and he later winds up castrated. 

Most of these stories have sad or tragic endings. Whether that's a judgment on sex or love or infidelity or power, I don't know. One tale near the end, about Nur Ed Din coming upon three naked women in a pool and trying to guess what they call their vaginas, is basically an extended bawdy joke. There is much graphic nudity and simulated sex, and many of the performers are non-professionals, though with the exception of Nur Ed DIn (Franco Merli), Zummurrud (Ines Pelligrini), and the demon (Franco Citti), there's not much need for acting skill in the service in characterizations. I've read that because many of the Middle East locals wouldn't do nude scenes, most of the major roles were filled by Italian actors, and the film frames are filled with handsome and beautiful faces. The lovely exteriors were shot in Iran, Africa and Nepal, and there is generally a very realistic feeling of sand and heat and sweat throughout. Still interesting to watch. Pictured is Francesco Paolo Governale who plays a character named Prince Tagi. [Criterion]