Like a lost night from the “night and a Thousand Nights,” Nacer Khemir’s “Bab’aziz, The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul” commands the eye. Part of the filmmaker’s “Desert Trilogy,” “Bab’aziz” is a ravishing walkabout in the Tunisian desert, a series of stories within stories that make the most of a fearful, gorgeous landscape. The great screenwriter Tonino Guerra (the films of Angelopoulos, “L’avventura,” “Night of the Shooting Stars”) contributed to the script and his firm hand with nesting narratives is fragrant here. Cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari elevates poetry to imagery. Resonant and often breathtaking, there are glorious layers here, mysteries as small as grains of sand and large as the sky itself. 96m. 35mm. (Ray Pride)
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