Arabian Nights: Volume 3 – The Enchanted One
As mil e uma noites: Volume 3 – O encantado
Before Scheherazade continues to tell about the present-day ordeals of the Portuguese people, she first chooses for herself in this conclusion of the Arabian Nights trilogy. Longing to get to know the world, she encounters bandits and genies and, defying space and time, has a serious talk with her father in a modern-day Ferris wheel. She then takes up the Portuguese thread again and leads us around, by way of counterpoint, in the tight community of finch trappers in the suburbs of Lisbon. Loosely interlaced with scenes of police demonstrations and the adventures of a female Chinese student as voice-over.
Many of the actors in Arabian Nights play multiple roles. Some of them, including several bird trappers, play themselves. These bird fanciers provide the trilogy’s most realistic portrayal of contemporary life in Portugal, with the love of birdsong as poetic touch. Yet even here an Oriental genie can suddenly pop up. Imagination is thicker than water.
Film details
- Countries of production
- France, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland
- Year
- 2015
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2016
- Length
- 125'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
