01
The Decameron
Why this pick
Pasolini’s earlier anthology shares Arabian Nights’ bawdy, earthy sensuality, episodic folktale rhythm, and affectionate attention to bodies, chance, and popular storytelling.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1974 2h 10m ITA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Arabian Nights
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Arabian Nights, try these.
01
02
The Canterbury Tales
Why this pick
Another exuberant Pasolini tale-cycle: carnivalesque sexuality, comic cruelty, and a deliberately rough-hewn medieval world told through nested encounters.
03
The Color of Pomegranates
Why this pick
For the same preference for non-naturalistic, culturally textured fable, Parajanov offers a far more ceremonial but equally sensuous procession of images, ritual, music, and desire.
04
Black Moon
Why this pick
Its dream-logic journey, liberated erotic charge, and refusal of ordinary realism make it a compelling companion to Pasolini’s playful, mythic imagination.
05
Daisies
Why this pick
Though modern in setting, its anarchic visual invention, sensual appetite, irreverent humour, and episodic pleasure echo Arabian Nights’ gleeful resistance to propriety.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
The main story concerns an innocent young man, Nur-e-Din (Franco Merli), who comes to fall in love with a slave girl, Zumurrud (Ines Pellegrini), who selected him as her master. After a foolish error of his causes her to be Kidnapping, he travels in search of her. Meanwhile, Zumurrud manages to escape and, disguised as a man, comes to a far-away kingdom where she becomes king. Various other travellers recount their own tragic and romantic experiences, including 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 (Franco Citti). Interwoven are Nur-e-Din's continuous search for Zumurrud and his (mostly erotic) adventures. In the end he arrives at the far-away kingdom and is reunited with Zumurrud. The film comprises 16 scenes:
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Franco Citti
The Demon
Ninetto Davoli
Aziz