ARABIAN NIGHTS 2 - THE DESOLATE ONE -

In the second part, “Arabian Nights – Volume 2: The Desolate One” (Portugal 2015), the tone darkens. Miguel Gomes has Scheherazade tell three stories, again based on events in Portugal between August 2013 and July 2014. Simão “Without Bowels” (Chico Chapas), an old man and murderer, flees the police through the hills and becomes a folk hero in the process. An open-air court hears the case of thirteen stolen cows, and with each testimony the chain of the guilty grows longer and more absurd. Finally, a Maltese dog named Dixie passes from owner to owner through the flats of a housing estate, where people die and life goes on.

The second volume is the most melancholy of the trilogy – less angry than the first, more bewildered and sad. Gomes combines a laconic western, a Brechtian courtroom play and a collective portrait in the form of a dog’s story. It premiered on 18 May 2015 in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes; Portugal submitted this part for the Foreign Language Oscar. At Around the World in 14 Films, the trilogy was shown in Berlin in 2015 in the Portugal Special section.

Shown at the 2015 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2015 · Film Archive