*Il Fiore Delle Mille e una Notte (Arabian Nights, 1974)*

*Il fiore delle mille e una notte, known in America Arabian Nights, is an Italian film from 1974. It is filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini's third movie in his Trilogy of Life series, preceeded by Il Decameron (1971), andThe Canterbury Tales (1972). The title means "The Flower of One Thousand and One Nights". The trilogy are filmed adaptations of classical medieval literature. Il fiore delle mille e una notte is based upon the Arabian Nights, a collection of stories which trace their origin back to ancient Arabia, Yemen, India, Persia, and Egypts. Pasolini filmed a cast of unknown actors in locations including Eritrea, Yemen, Ethiopa, and Nepal.

*In Il fiore delle mille e una notte, Pasolini tells the love story of Nuradin and Zumurrud, using it as the framework to tell smaller tales of love, sexuality, fidelity, and fate. In the frame story, Zumurrud is a slave girl who is able to choose who she wants as her new master. From the crowd of heckling men, she chooses the young man, Nuradin. Zumurrud teaches the inexperienced Nuradin to express himself sexually, thus allowing her to express herself sexually as well. Within this story comes the inner stories, read to Nuradin by Zumurred. These inner tales are short and without conflict. The first is of an elderely man watching a beautiful woman bathe. The story is followed by another, in which three young men are chosen by an older man to listen to his poems and join him in sexual pleasure. The third story told is of a wager between an elderly couple, observing the sexual attraction between a young man and a young woman. After she is finished reading him the story, Zumurrud is abducted due to an error on Nuradin’s part. In desperation, Nuradin sets out on a journey to get her back. Zumurrud, meanwhile, manages to outwit her capturers and escapes to a distant city where she is mistaken for a man and crowned as the king. While on his search, Nuradin, comes into contact with beautiful women, who cater to him and make sexual advances on him, yet he remains determined to find Zumurrud. The film then delves into the dream of a princess, where the story of Aziz is seen. On his wedding day, he falls in love with another woman, thus being unfaithful to his bride to be. Interwoven with this story is another, in which a man is determined to rid a woman of her demon. Here, Pasolini keeps with the original text’s structure of a story which unfold into another, and then into another, eventually leading back to the frame story. Nuradin comes across the city where Zumurrud reigns, and the lovers are reunited again.

Il fiore delle mille e una notte contains more than one specific theme. Much of the first half of the movie prior to Zumurrud’s abduction delves into the themes of sexuality and sexual expression, seen in the two lovers’ relationship, the old man and the three young men, and the wager between the old couple. The interwoven stories of the second half of the film depict more complete stories in which the subjects deal with fate. The story of Aziz leads to the death of his former bride-to-be, and his own castration. Yet, contrary to its inner stories, the frame story of the love between Nuradin and Zumurrud leads to their reunion. Unlike Aziz, who did not remain faithful, Nuradin resists the many sexual diversion thrown his way, and finds Zumurrud at the end of his journey.

Considered one of "the best and certainly most intelligent of Nights films," Il fiore delle mille e una notte draws heavily from the more sexual tales of the original text rather taking from the more commonly known Aladdin and Ali Baba stories. The film is aimed more towards an adult audience, unlike the many other Arabian Nights film adaptations. Pasolini gives his audience numerous nude and erotic sex scenes without being pornographic. Unlike the original text, Il fiore does not have a princess who must tell several stories over many nights, yet Pasolini preserves the original structure of a frame story which unfolds into another tale, which unfolds into another tale. "As he observed in an epigraph to the film, "The truth is to be found not in one dream, but in many dreams." Pasolini is considered by some to be "the most faithful of all film men to work with the Nights, "taking several authentic stories but intelligently rearranging their structure," while still preserving the sexuality and eroticism of the original tales.