Arabian Nights (Il Fiore delle Mille e Una Notte)

I loved Pasolini's Decameron, and I loved this adaptation of the Thousand and One Nights. I know that Arabian Nights and The Decameron are allegedly both supposed to part of some "trilogy of life". I put no stock in that at all, but this film is very similar in form to The Decameron, and I loved it for that. This is a sexy, romantic, delightful romp. With its scenes of homosexuality, explicit heterosexual sex, and erect penises, Arabian Nights was, unsurprisingly, not released in the United States until much later. 

It's quite clear, though, that Pasolini – with this film and with the Decameron – is interested in sex as something unsullied and pure, something that cultures try to disrupt and destroy. For him, these films that adapt stories from the medieval period are really showing us this purity.

Il Fiore delle Mille e Una Notte is also notable for the way it treats Ninetto Davoli, Pasolini's longtime lover. This was their final film together, and Davoli left Pasolini to go marry a woman. In the Mille e Una Notte, Davoli's character is violently punished for his faithlessness and callousness.