Arabian Nights Volume 1: The Restless One

classified 15 S
Film

Please note: This was screened in April 2016

Director
Miguel Gomes
Cast
Miguel Gomes, Carloto Cotta, Rogério Samora
Details
125 mins, Subtitled, 2015, Portugal / France / Germany / Switzerland

This year's most ambitious cinematic undertaking - and the most talked about experience of last year's Cannes - is Miguel Gomes' (Tabu, a Bristol hit) uniquely imaginative, wildly ambitious three part fable that adopts the structure from Scheherazade's Arabian Nights to explore Portugal's plunge into austerity. Although each film in the trilogy can be enjoyed individually, it is probably best to see all three films: we will be screening Volume Two: The Desolate One (from Fri 29 April for at least one week) and Volume Three: The Enchanted One (from Fri 6 May for one week).

This, the first volume in the triptych, is jam-packed with ideas, taking in housing projects and palaces, punk rockers and princesses, baliffs and caliphs – an encyclopedic sprawl of a film that mixes fantasy, documentary, docu-fiction, Brechtian pantomime and echoes of MGM musicals. Non-professionals – sometimes playing characters, sometimes being themselves – mingle with genies, wizards, camels, dogs and IMF economists, all to a deliriously eclectic soundtrack. Oh and there are appearances by cunning wasps, virgin mermaids, an exploding whale, erection-inducing potions, and a talking rooster. Told you it was eclectic!


× Close

Help us make our website work better for you

We use Google Analytics to gather information on how our website is used. This information helps us to make changes to our website that improve the usefulness and overall experience for our visitors. If you would like to help us to make continuous improvements to our website, please allow us to set "first-party" cookies (only readable by us) so that we can distinguish visitors and gain greater insights.

Allow cookies for analytics Deny cookies for analytics