Weird-arse movies that Channel 4 showed in the 1980s based on Arabian mythology that you remember being weirded out by when you watched them and that starred Peter Firth and Nabil Shaban #1: Born of Fire

14 May 2012 Rob Buckley Film 2 Comments

It’s going to be a short series.

Unusual and violent activity is observed on the surface of the sun during an eclipse. A dormant volcano erupts in Turkey. A musician (Peter Firth) is haunted by a strange melody. These are the starting points of what turns out to be a surrealist journey into Arabic mythology.

After meeting an astronomer (Suzan Crowley) who observed the strange activity on the sun, Firth visits his mother on her deathbed. She tells him of the Master Musician, a mysterious being living in Turkey, where his father, also a musician, died a long time ago.

Firth takes off for Turkey, to face the demons of his father’s past and find this mythical Master Musician. His trip takes us deep into the heart of arabic mythology, into a world inhabited by Djinns and Shaytans, respectively born of Air and Fire. He will learn many things about his father’s life that will bring him to the brink of insanity.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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