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Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One

Name: Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One
Director: Miguel Gomes
Released: 2015
Duration: 126 min

Representation Score

8.2/10

Excellent

2015

Not Rated

Director

Miguel Gomes

Runtime

126 minutes

Average Rating

No ratings yet

New Showbiz Analysis

Miguel Gomes delivers a postmodern deconstruction of traditional storytelling, emphasizing the fluidity of identity over straightforward representation. The film excels at subverting traditional power dynamics, particularly regarding gender hierarchies and moral rigidity. While the work challenges Western storytelling conventions and explores the fluid nature of identity, it lacks clear markers for racial and disability-based diversity. The focus remains on stylistic subversion and the exploration of underrepresented identities through metaphor. Ultimately, the film is a sophisticated study of subjectivity, trading overt social representation for a deeper exploration of how identity and truth are constructed within the cinematic frame.

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Category Breakdown

Does Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film explores identity as a flexible concept rather than a fixed reality. It touches on non-traditional ideas of desire without showing same-sex intimacy explicitly.

How does Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One portray gender?

Good

Scheherazade plays a significant role in driving the story, challenging the idea of women as passive subjects. The film presents women as creators of myths rather than objects of a gaze.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One?

Fair

Set mostly in contemporary Lisbon, the film focuses on local communities. It uses fairy tale motifs as metaphors for the 'other,' blurring the lines between the familiar and the exotic.

How does Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One represent religion and culture?

Good

The work deconstructs Western storytelling traditions by prioritizing personal truth over strict moral codes. It criticizes rigid structures like the Palace in favor of a more liberated exploration of experience.

Does Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One include disability representation?

Fair

There is no explicit evidence of characters with disabilities driving the plot. Themes of bewitchment may touch on altered consciousness, but no specific disability narratives are present.

Present on Screen

Challenges traditional gender roles by giving Scheherazade a leading role.
Combines documentary realism with myth to challenge Western storytelling.
Explores identity as a flexible concept rather than a fixed social reality.

Limited or Absent

Lacks clear representation of racial or ethnic diversity.
Does not provide narratives driven by characters with disabilities.
Uses metaphor instead of direct depiction to explore diverse identities.

Official Synopsis

In which Scheherazade doubts that she will still be able to tell stories to please the King, given that what she has to tell weighs three thousand tonnes. She therefore escapes from the palace and travels the Kingdom in search of pleasure and enchantment. Her father, the Grand-Vizier, arranges to meet her at the Ferris wheel, and Scheherazade resumes her narration: “Auspicious King, in old shanty towns of Lisbon there was a community of bewitched men who, in all rigour and passion, dedicated themselves to teaching birds to sing…”. And seeing the morning break, Scheherazade fell silent.

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