ARABIAN NIGHTS: VOLUME 3, THE ENCHANTED ONE
Miguel Gomes

O.V. Portuguese

In the third volume, Sheherazade tries to avoid her fate by escaping into Baghdad. Yet she has one last story to tell, about men who train birds for singing contests in working-class neighbourhoods of Lisbon. Gomes seems to be borrowing from the duality of Pasolini, straddling the anti-naturalism of Medea and the sociological bent of Accatonne. While the first part is a nod to swords-and-sandals epics and even musicals, shot with deliberate artifice, the second takes an almost documentary...