Seeing Pasolini's version of the Arabian Nights reminded of Petersens masterpiece Neverending Story(the 1984 original). Like in the Neverending Story the power of the mind,of fantasy,of hope is not an abstraction but an unlimited,almost almighty force. An adult never ending story,due to its eroticism,but the erotic scenes and situations only add more mystery and beauty to this film. Eroticism,but not only sexuality,affection,love,passion appear as the ultimate initiating journey,as quest for beauty and ideal. However the film is much more intellectual than erotic,while the protagonists(some of whom are the same from Il Decamerone),mainly amateurs,apparently lack sexual magnetism.But this is where Pasolini's genius is asserted:the endless beauty of this film and its characters is not an outer one-body language,the force of expressions,the deep symbolism are to be slowly,carefully and voluptuously discovered... This film enthralls,fascinates and,at the same time,boosts the intellect.With every scene,every moment passing you find yourself more and more captured by something like a barbaric religion,oriental wisdom,a drug,a poem by Omar Khayyam,an exotic work of art or...just a strange succession of adventures from the Arabian Nights. Filligrane,indefinable,bizarre-both sexual and platonic love are described in this way;as the crucial adventure in everyone's life,the ultimate gateway to perfection,immortality-but not in the sense of procreation(rather the aesthetic&ecstatic beauty transcends everything);a religion of the purest pantheistic sort(Divinity is in everything and trough the few moments of ecstasy man can surpass the boundaries between simple mortals and eternal values,in strike of inspiration brought up by love and passion,both not in the strictly fleshly,human,commonplace sense of the word). Pasolini's vision of the Orient is highly personal and anything else but stereotypical(Ancient Rome in Fellini's Satyricon,Middle Ages in the films of Tarkovski or Ken Russel don't always reflect historical truth like a schoolbook,yet they depict a highly artistic,metaphorical vision of these ages and places,historically inaccurate,but artistically more accomplished&valuable than the dull historical truth);it is a fantastic space beyond good and evil,yet not Utopian(it doesn't necessarily exclude violence and cruelty,yet not in a commercial b-movie thriller/horror style,just as a touch to complete the force and depth of several images and situations. Irrespective of his homosexuality Pasolini doesn't only understand heterosexuality,this film gives the impression that he also intensely relishes it with every breath.This man feels heterosexuality!!!! Less entertaining than Il Decamerone(which,is not a less deep and meaningful film than this),intricate,sometimes difficult to follow,unceremonious yet uplifting,mysterious like love and sexuality(or at least our ideal projection of it)itself. Pasolini should have named his trilogy of life the trilogy of unlimited desire,unlimited passion or unlimited fantasy. Because like in the Neverending Story,the power of fantasy,ideal and passions seams in this film the source of life itself(and even a higher,evolved&idealistic form of life on another,more intense level).
Review of Arabian Nights
