Last month, I began watching Miguel Gomes’s three-part film, Arabian Nights by reviewing its first volume, The Restless One. I was interested to see how Gomes would incorporate the famed folklore collection Arabian Nights into a film far from the Middle East and set in 21st century Portugal. While the films are not direct adaptations from the collection, they use the story framework and fantastical events to critique the economic conditions of Portugal during the mid-2010s. This time I’m reviewing the second volume of the trilogy.

The Desolate One has a different atmosphere to it. While the first volume, The Restless One, was more focused on the fantastic and had an upbeat vibe, The Desolate One is melancholic and replaces the fantastic with absurdity. And like its predecessor, this film follows three stories.

The first tale is titled “The Chronicle of the Escape of Simão ‘Without Bowels’”. Simão is a spree killer who has murdered his wife, daughter, and, recently, two women. As he is on the run, Simão relies on robbing to keep fed. His neighbors are annoyed by his stealing but prefer not to report him to the authorities. This is not out of sympathy, but rather the townsfolk believe it’s futile to change Simão’s behavior, and they don’t want the National Republican Guard (GNR) interfering in their daily life. It is not until Simão is finally arrested by the GNR that he suddenly becomes a folk hero.

In the second segment, “The Tears of the Judge”, a trial is being held at an unknown amphitheater in the middle of the night. An unnamed woman is on trial for selling her landlord’s furniture for her son’s increasing debt. The already strange case unravels when one of the court’s spectators claims that the landlord deserves it for prank calling emergency services numerous times a day. The landlord claims that an evil genie made him do it, while the genie claims a corrupt man who freed him ordered the genie to torment the landlord. With each person in the crowd being revealed to be a victim of a crime and eventually the perpetrator of a crime, the judge chastises everyone in disbelief.  

The final story, “The Owners of Dixie”, is about a dog named Dixie. The dog goes through numerous owners within a rundown apartment building. With each family that the dog is adopted by (mainly because the previous family was evicted), we see the numerous financial struggles that have occurred in the country and the psychological impact it has had on families. It soon gets to a point where a young couple begs for food but is instead given Dixie after being denied assistance.

The Desolate One is no doubt much more somber than The Restless One. I would dare to say that the political allegories in this film are far stronger than those in the prior film.

“The Chronicle of the Escape of Simão ‘Without Bowels’” was certainly an interesting portrayal of how a society can align with criminals against unpopular governments. Simão’s crimes are not what is celebrated. Instead, he is considered a hero for being a nuisance to the deeply unpopular Portuguese government. When a government fails its society, it is not surprising to see criminals celebrated as anti-heroes. The United States itself experienced such a phenomenon during the Great Depression, when bank robbers like Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd were heralded for antagonizing the institutions that contributed to economic upheaval. Simão, to his town, is catharsis personified.

The never-ending unraveling of crimes in the court of “The Tears of the Judge” is clearly about the culture of corruption. Each person in the court justifies their crime as a fix to financial or political grievances. The victims of all the announced crimes also attempt to justify their own crimes as “it’s just the way it is, why shouldn’t I get a cut too”? It soon becomes that the net of corruption is so wide, it would almost seem foolish to convict everyone in the amphitheater. No doubt this is Gomes’s frustration with the corrupt not being properly tried.

Finally, “The Owners of Dixie” displays the degradation of humanity. While Dixie is fortunate to be so unaware of the economy, with each new owner, we see the Portuguese struggle with the economic crisis, the eventual housing crisis, and the psychological turmoil caused by the recession.

Having almost finished this trilogy, I will say so far that I prefer The Desolate One. It is more engaging and straight to the point than some of the rather confusing and drawn-out aspects of The Restless One. Nonetheless, I am excited to see where Gomes takes us in his final installment. 

We thank the Portuguese Times for allowing us to publish these magnificent pieces by Matthew Arruda.