Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One

Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One

In his “Arabian Nights” cycle third and last section, called “The Enchanted One,” director Miguel Gomes finally brings up Pier Paolo Pasolini. The film creator’s last movie, named after a town of Northern Italy under German occupation during World War II whose name has become synonymous with suffering, was so dark that it cast a long shadow on everything he made before it. But just before he turned away from the beauty of existence, Pasolini directed the Trilogy of Life: “The Canterbury Tales,” “The Decameron” and this one omnibus films comprised of erotic and comic tales set in ancient cultures. Each loves endless dirty landscapes, naked idealized bodies and storytelling itself.

Gomes’ lets himself be influenced by Pasolini’s own “Arabian Nights,” both in its images and structure, once he has spent two movies full of parable and metaphor. The first parts’ themes, characters and ideas reappear; likewise do full-figured women and gorgeous semi-nude men right out of Pasolini’s earthly kingdoms.

“The Enchanted One” starts with Scheherazade (Crista Alfaiate for a third time) and her father the Grand Vizier both filled with regret. The old man misses his long dead wife whose ghost dances in his mind’s eye, while wishing to free his daughter from marriage to bloodthirsty king. Scheherazade dreams not only of the country she will die to protect but also its many humble subjects.

She leaves the kingdom where she meets a diver named Lionel who loves her from afar; a flamboyant genie of wind called Elvis bandit steals to live dances for fun; blonde pin-up Paddleman whom Scherehazade tells when his children ask him questions about nature world that he is far too dumb settle down with but somewhat radiant looking nevertheless among others.

With Paddleman Scheherazade finds archipelago thieves listens to psychedelic Tropicalia while sun goes down; but knows this peace cannot last so after telling him that far too dumb even think of settling down together with her (but you are somewhat radiant) leaves it. She has one more tale to the tell the king.

“The Inebriating Chorus of the Chaffinches” is the last story Scheherazade tells. It’s a documentary about songbird competition, which is at center many men’s lives. It may be favorite part movie for any given viewer or their least favorite part, depending on how well everything before went down inside you up until now with all these different chapters mixing together and creating such an odd experience; because formally speaking this chapter seems out of place compared to others but still remains undeniably rich as tragic like other tales within Arabian Nights cycle by Miguel Gomes.

The birds were found by soldiers in the trenches of WWI, and brought back with them, presumably so that their singing could bring some light into the lives of every shell shocked man coming back from the front. Since then, generations of finch have been bred for song, each one getting more specific.

They died in a car crash in the 90s and that song will never be heard again. Gomes believes that men training the finches now are haunted by the lost song and it’s a pretty good metaphor for all culture devastated by the government’s economic austerity; when one of these guys breaks down crying after his champion bird dies, we know why he loses his cool in front of his colleagues. The birder knows that each finch sings a different song which is precious. When they die they take it away.

Chico Chapas walks home after winning (you may remember him as “The Desolate One” from earlier), playing himself this time. He finds a genie caught in a net shaped like an old man who says he’s 60 years old. He makes sure to tell him to be careful before he lets him go because life is delicate. Gomes cuts to Langley Music School Project’s cover of Klaatu’s “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft,” a song many believed was written by The Beatles after they broke up.

The desperate hope of people who wanted more magical music from artists who had defined a generation becomes even more poignant when sung by children than it did from adults, I think somebody thought maybe if we teach these songs to kids they’ll outlast their cultural half-life or something like that, you know? That pursuit drives this cinema . As the grand vizier tells Scherehazade , “Anger is not a bad thing if it’s well directed.”

This was what drove Pasolini to make films and what drives Gomes now to make his own Trilogy of Life. He saw Portugal the woman, the bird, the song, the place, the mindset, the series of dreams in danger of being silenced. So he yelled at the sky and turned his anger into a beautiful tapestry of past and present with hopes that none of this country’s esoterica will be lost in future years.

There’s something odd about the two-evening structure of “The Enchanted One.” The beginning, where Scheherazade meets her kingdom’s various inhabitants and bemoans her role as storyteller has a double meaning. First it reflects Gomes’ profound sadness at being the only person who remembers Portugal’s cinema history or, at least, the one with highest regard for it on the international festival circuit. If he doesn’t, who will? Second, it is also the most beautiful part of the entire six-hour “Arabian Nights” project. It is full of gorgeous people and vistas; funny tangents; awash in a diffused longing.

Gomes plays with past traditions and present realities (the tangible facts), hoping for a better future for his country. Literally this time: He loves to get drunk on cheap fortified wine with his buddies, whom he casts as fishermen from Cascais (the beach town outside Lisbon) connecting through stories about prostitutes (which could be read as him talking about himself). But also figuratively: These memories can be used to educate those who want to know more about their nation’s history so that they don’t repeat it again.

“‘The Inebriating Chorus of the Chaffinches’ is the very real evidence,” Gomes says in press notes translated by Kohn & Wyatt, “of what we lose along the way.” But how can we maintain a conversation with our country’s past lives if we forget them? Memory and education are vital when dealing with such things especially among those whose homes have been torn apart by bombs dropped from above by people who just wanted power over others but knew nothing about themselves or anything else besides killing everyone around them because someone else told them it was necessary for something greater than themselves!

That said: Even though Gomes doesn’t believe in God anymore; even though he realizes that everything is falling apart because people are too stubborn to change their ways still, he hopes. “The only thing I can do,” Gomes says in the press notes, “is to tell stories.” Just like “one whore after another,” it’s all he has left.

My friend Nick Newman, a critic at The Film Stage, caught me earlier complaining that “Arabian Nights” won’t make a fraction of the box office it deserves when movies like “Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens” open against them. He gave me advice that sums up this wondrous behemoth: don’t complain, write. We will lose important things if nobody tells us they’re about to go dark; make something that shines a light on them.

That is what Miguel Gomes has done. Early in “The Enchanted One,” we hear these words: “To tell you the truth there are many things I haven’t seen.” Well now there is a little less for us not to know and a lot more for us not to want. It’s not Portugal unified, but it’s a start.

Watch Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One For Free On Gomovies.