Arabian Nights Vol.3: The Enchanted 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.3: THE ENCHANTED ONE

As the series draws to a close stories continue to spawn one another, and our guide Scheherazade takes centre-stage in a musical sequence featuring a breakdancing Elvis, with Marseille doubling as Old Baghdad. By this point we’ve become accustomed to tonal zig-zags, but it’s still a surprise when the narrative mayhem settles down to make way for a semi-documentary portrait of a group of unemployed men training caged chaffinches for a birdsong contest. By the end, it’s unlikely that you’ll look at Portugal – or cinema – in the same way again.

We will be screening Arabian Nights Vol. 1: The Restless One on Friday 22 April at 6.15pm and Arabian Nights Vol. 2: The Desolate One on Saturday 23 April at 1.15pm.

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.