In the final act of "Arabian Nights," Gomes is to his audience as Scheherazade is to the Auspicious King - telling us the story, rather than displaying it. Unfortunately for us, the story that "The Enchanted One" is most comprised of is that of "The Inebriating Chorus of the Chaffinches," the most underwhelming and sluggish story told throughout "Arabian Nights" as it feels much longer than the film's excessive run-time. Most disappointingly, the film's conclusion is more interested in a lengthy shot of a bird-trapper walking down a gravel road than the fate of the endangered protagonist.
As for the entirety of "Arabian Nights":
In the Modernity of Time, there lives on the archipelago an ambitious director who crafted an intelligent, long-winded, audacious film which expresses both love and disdain for his homeland of Portugal through a series of fantastical and absurd stories rooted in a narrative structure drawn from "One Thousand and One Nights." Even the most adventurous of film-goers would proclaim his six-hour saga as "incomprehensible nonsense" and others a "higher form of art." Me, I believe that it is both. If Gomes portrayed his world as is, perhaps it would be even more incomprehensible and less entertaining. As an entire collection, my arbitrary numerical score for "Arabian Nights" is a 7/10.
As for the entirety of "Arabian Nights":
In the Modernity of Time, there lives on the archipelago an ambitious director who crafted an intelligent, long-winded, audacious film which expresses both love and disdain for his homeland of Portugal through a series of fantastical and absurd stories rooted in a narrative structure drawn from "One Thousand and One Nights." Even the most adventurous of film-goers would proclaim his six-hour saga as "incomprehensible nonsense" and others a "higher form of art." Me, I believe that it is both. If Gomes portrayed his world as is, perhaps it would be even more incomprehensible and less entertaining. As an entire collection, my arbitrary numerical score for "Arabian Nights" is a 7/10.