写真

Les Tapis Volants, aka Flying Carpets Over Agrabah, Disneyland, Paris.

Another image taken a few years ago on a student visit that I organised (the students were studying Media, which just about explains the choice of venue!) Not somewhere I would have chosen to go, frankly, but they seemed to enjoy it.

This "ride" is presumably based on the 1992 Disney film "Aladdin", though in what way this merry-go-round recalls a magic carpet is anyone's guess. And of course Disney has played fast and loose with the "Arabian Nights" story anyway. In Disney's version several characters are renamed and/or amalgamated (for instance the Sorcerer and the Sultan's vizier become the same person named "Jafar" while the Princess Badroulbadour becomes "Jasmine": presumably an easier name for Disney's audience to cope with), have new motivations for their actions (the Lamp Genie now desires freedom from his role) or are simply replaced (there is no Ring Genie, but a magic carpet fills his place in the plot). So the magic carpet seen here is at least two wrenches away from the original story. Mind you, apparently this tale, (set bizarrely in China originally, though all the characters appear to have Middle Eastern names), was not in the original set of stories that made up the "The Book of One Thousand and One Nights". Though one of the best known, it was actually added to the collection in the 18th century by its French translator Antoine Galland.

Camera propped on a wall to allow a longish shutter speed, probably 1/2 sec by the look of it.