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FNC 2015: ‘Arabian Nights — Volume 3: The Enchanted One’ is a loose, humanistic conclusion

In spite of its seemingly monumental ambitions, Miguel Gomes’s Arabian Nights has never been in danger of being weighed down by pretensions. From the opening minutes of Volume One, Gomes has maintained an effervescent tone, albeit one tamed somewhat in the darker Volume Two. Even there, Arabian Nights keeps its focus on its main subject: the Portuguese people, and the ways in which they’ve felt the impact of austerity. As such, Gomes’s film always true to itself and never seems to stray from the director’s vision.

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FNC 2015: ‘Arabian Nights — Volume 2, The Desolate One’ is a darker middle act

After a joyous, energetic opening, the second installment of Miguel Gomes’s Arabian Nights, subtitled The Desolate One, takes a turn, appropriate to its title, for the darker. The humor which makes the opening such a blast certainly hasn’t entirely disappeared, but it’s become more subdued, and at times even cruel.

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Miguel Gomes’ ‘Arabian Nights’ series puts a new spin on adaptation

As each separate volume stresses in its title sequence, this is not an adaptation of the original book Arabian Nights. While it’s not a surefire adaptation, Miguel Gomes’ series certainly takes a lot from it, including the structure (which the films admit to) and the lead character of Scheherazade.

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FNC 2015: ‘Arabian Nights — Volume 1, The Restless One’ is a light-hearted start to an epic

From a simplistic description, Miguel Gomes’s film Arabian Nights could sound unbearably self-important. Taking its name from a foundational collection of folk literature and running at a total of over six hours, the film almost sounds like a parody of arthouse excess. Add in the political goals of depicting life in contemporary Portugal under the pain of its economic collapse, and the mere concept of the film threatens to implode in self-seriousness.

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Staff List: The 40 Best Films of 2012

#10: The Cabin in the Woods (107 points) Written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard Directed by Drew Goddard USA, 2012 Like Scream, it’s a self-aware slasher film, but where Scream was happy simply to turn the genre’s bloody glove inside out and examine the stitching, The Cabin in the Woods has more complicated ambitions. If Scream is …

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Ricky D’s 50 Favourite Films of 2012 (Part Two)

  25: The Dark Knight Rises Directed by Christopher Nolan Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan 2012, USA The Dark Knight Rises feels as if it was made up of two equal halves, with the most critical moment of the film breaking the movie in half, almost literally. While the second half may have …

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Ricky D’s 50 Favourite Films of 2012 (Part One)

2012 wasn’t a bad year for movies. It was actually a great year. The problem is, the movies we were most anticipating, specifically the Hollywood blockbusters like Prometheus and The Hobbit, didn’t live up to our expectations. With that said I still managed to make a list of 50 films I loved. Maybe I just …

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‘Tabu’ Image Gallery

[quote by=”Synopsis”]Acclaimed director Miguel Gomes (“Our Beloved Month of August”) returns with a sumptuous, eccentric two-part tale centered on Aurora, shown first as an impulsive, cantankerous elderly woman in present-day Lisbon. When Aurora is hospitalized, she sends her neighbor, Pilar, to pass word of her grave condition to Gian Luca, a man of which no …

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‘Tabu’ Movie Review – an exquisitely-cut gem, and perhaps the best film of the year

Tabu Directed by Miguel Gomes Written by Miguel Gomes Portugal, 2012 With his third feature, Portuguese critic-turned-auteur Miguel Gomes has proven himself to be a director in complete control of his craft. Tabu is a film of artistic cool – breaking classic genre conventions in the most crafty and affectionate way by consistently subverting the …

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