Arabian Nights [Il fiore delle mille e una notte] **** (1974, Franco Citti, Ninetto Davoli, Franco Merli, Ines Pellegrini) – Classic Movie Review 3202

Co-writer/director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1974 movie is the third and finest of his Trilogy of Life movies of mediaeval stories after The Decameron (1971) and The Canterbury Tales (1972), in which tales from Thousand and One Nights are framed by one about a slave girl (Ines Pellegrini as Zumurrud) who selects an innocent young man (Franco Merli as Nur Ed Din) as her master.

But he makes the mistake of falling in love with her, causing their separation when a foolish error of his gets her abducted. However, Zumurrud manages to escape, disguised as a man, and comes to a far-away kingdom where she becomes king and the ruler of a great city. Other stories include that of a young man enraptured by a mysterious woman on his wedding day, and one of a man who is determined to free a woman from the Demon.

Pasolini films on beautiful locations in Eritrea, Yemen and Nepal, using some of his usual reliable stock company, headed by Franco Citti (as the Demon) and Ninetto Davoli (as Aziz) both from The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales.

In a gorgeous, rousing film, superbly shot by Giuseppe Ruzzolini and designed by Dante Ferretti, he achieves a truly magical and exotic atmosphere exactly appropriate to these tales, with music again by Ennio Morricone. The film is by and large a series of amusing erotic adventures, with abundant nudity and sex on display, as well as much slapstick humour.

Also in the cast are Luigina Rocchi, Tessa Bouché, Margarethe Clémenti, Francelise Noël, Ali Abdulla, Christian Aligny, Jeanne Gauffin Governale, Salvatore Sapienza, Elisabetta Genovese, Gioacchino Castellini, Abadit Ghidei, Francesco Paolo Governale, Zeudi Biasolo and Alberto Argentino.

There is explicit sex in the uncut original version of 155 minutes (now lost). The American international print runs at 131 minutes. The film won the Grand Prix Spécial Prize at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.

The film is an adaptation of the ancient Iranian anthology The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, better known as The Arabian Nights. Pasolini writes the screenplay, with script collaboration by Dacia Maraini.

The 16-year-old Franco Merli was working as a petrol station attendant when he was discovered for the film’s main role by Pasolini, who employed him again in Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Today Merli lives in Rome, where he works in a bank and has two sons.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3202

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