Arabian Nights Vol. 2: The Desolate One

One of cinema’s most ambitious attempts yet to engage with the age of austerity, Arabian Nights is also full of great pop music and ribald seaside humour.

Using Scheherazade’s story-telling as a frame, this beguiling and befuddling new trilogy by Miguel Gomes (Tabu) takes great joy in colliding and combining fantasy with reality. The kamikaze production process began with a team being despatched across Portugal to gather stories, which once approved by a committee were swiftly filmed by a small crew on 16mm using actors and non-professionals. One of cinema’s most ambitious attempts yet to engage with the age of austerity, Arabian Nights is also full of great pop music and ribald seaside humour.

Vol.2: THE DESOLATE ONE More ebullient than its title would have you believe, the middle segment limits itself to three chapters. After a semi-Western about a cantankerous outlaw who eludes the law and their drones, the bulk of the film is devoted to an increasingly bizarre courtroom drama concerning talking cows and mail-order brides. We conclude with ‘The Owners of Dixie’, the tale of an unwanted poodle on a Lisbon housing estate which features a welcome dose of Lionel Richie. It’s worth putting a word in here for the wonderful visual textures achieved throughout the trilogy by Gomes’ DoP, regular Apichatpong collaborator Sayombhu Mukdeeprom.

We will be screening Arabian Nights Vol. 1: The Restless One on Friday 22 April at 6.15pm and Arabian Nights Vol. 3: The Enchanted One on Saturday 23 April at 4pm.

This screening is part of the Arabian Nights bundle. Buy the bundle and get 3 for the price of 2, £17 Full Price or £13 Concession.