The WTF is strong in this film. Lots of head shaking and bewilderment to be found here. Including a bow and arrow powered dildoe. I've read 1001 nights and found it completely different but there are those that argue this film is the most accurate of all! Such as "Adaptation Essay Prize Winner Pasolini's Splendid Infidelities: Un/Faithful Film Versions of The Thousand and One Nights" by Michael James Lundell. Where believe it or not he argues that "Pasolini's 1974 film Il fiore delle mille e una notte seems to be the most faithful adaptation, in its emphasis on sexuality, of The 1001 Nights in its oldest form. This success is surprising and possibly inadvertent but it presents a potentially measurable connection between the written and filmic Nights."

Resembling something out of an obscure dream, the characters from the ancient tales of the 1,001 Nights come to life in a dizzying spectacle of natural beauty, natural light, and the most breathtaking landscapes ever committed to film. Sumptously filmed throughout the exotic locales of Yemen, Ethiopia,Iran, and as far as Nepal, we are introduced to the story's hero, the sweet and innocent Nur Ed Din, played by the exotically beautiful Franco Merli, (Salo: 120 Days of Sodom.) While in the marketplace, Nur Ed Din encounters the enchanting Zumurrud, a feisty slave girl, being sold at auction. The girl has a spirit of her own and is given permission to choose who her next master shall be. Turning down generous offers from rich old men, she instead selects the young shepherd boy, Nur Ed Din, who is delighted to bring his new slave back to his home. He has not one dinar, but this matters not to Zumurud, who shows the boy the mysteries of eroticism. Of course Zumurud is stolen away after he ignores a prophetic warning from his slave, not to do business with a blue-eyed Christian. A greatly heart-broken Nur Ed Din embarks on an adventure to find his lost love, and this adventure is the centerpiece of this enormous, sweeping film. During his travels he meets many people, who all have their own tales to tell, thus taking the boy on still further adventures, where he encounters genies, giants, Princes, and heart-broken men in search of their lost loves. There are sequences in this film that are so beautiful that they induce chills, such as when Zumurud comes upon the kingdom in the desert, and is greeted by a brigade who name her 'King' of their castle, thinking that she is a man. Or when Nur Ed Din encounters the lion in the desert, and is led by the beast to an enchanted city where his beloved awaits. Featuring a minimal but beautiful score from Ennio Morricone, the predominant sounds are the desert winds, and innocent laughter of children. Rather than employ professional actors, Pasolini wisely uses locals, many who possess the most natural and innocent kind of beauty imaginable. Natural performers who can hardly resist giggling shyly when doing a nude scene. This is a world where sex is portrayed completely without Western guilt, and Pasolini even veers away from the rigid sexual codes of Islam, to bring these magic tales to life, suggesting perhaps that these tales are older even than religion itself. Erotic scenes that come across as playful, some even featuring erect penises, (a rarity in mainstream cinema,) and yet it all still comes off as strangely innocent and utterly pure. If the fantastic tales don't dazzle the viewer, than certainly the cinematography and the beautiful, lush costumes will surely boggle the mind. This is what cinema is really about; a creation of a fantasy world so real, and glorious enough to take one out of reality, and on a great adventure. This must truly have been something to behold on the big screen. "Arabian Nights" was the final film of Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life" collection. A year later he would embark on the first film of his "Trilogy of Death" series. He would not live to see the final editing of his "Salo: 120 Days of Sodom," a film considered by some to be the most offensive and controversial film of all time. Some say that he was murdered because of the contents of that film. But see "Arabian Nights," a true celebration of life and the human spirit.

This film version keeps much of the eroticism in Sir Richard Burton's original translation, which previous movie treatments saw fit to water down… Great care was taken in the details: it was shot on location (Africa and the Middle East) and a dark skinned girl was cast as the princess… The acting is extremely good, and the stories connect in and out in intriguing fashion...The film selects some of the more popular of the Arabian Nights stories, but intertwines them in strange ways… Like the original, many stories lead into other stories and again into others… One of the most erotic sequences is when two supernatural beings decide to play a trick on a virginal girl and boy… The beings make each young person seduce the other while he or she is asleep… In another scene, one of the heroes finds himself in a pool with a group of very pretty, very nude Arabian women, who tease and tickle him into an intense joy

Exploration of the search. Shadow of way and interior fight, images like footsteps of old time, joy of adventure.For me, not the Oriental myth or the Arabian tale are the subject of movie but Pasolini's hope. The way to kalokagathos is not yet only illusion. The innocence of first age is possibility to discover the essence of human sense like filling's sight." Il Fiore delle mille e una notte" is part of important project, a human life's exploration, a tale about the taste and the limits of innocence, a pledge for dream and childhood values but, in same time, a merciless verdict: this world is only desire, chimera, legend. His touch is ,always,immoral,unavailing, dangerous.In fact, it is a new book of Job version. It is a story, beautiful story, about wantonness. But the only way to survive, only refuge is the dream like imagination fruit. Important is only the way. The target is trifling.A splendid poem-film who explains Pasolini crisis.