Three Thousand Years of Longing – Review
108 Minutes, Rated R
Written by George Miller, Augusta Gore, and A.S. Byatt
Directed by George Miller
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review below, then check out Ryan’s review HERE. Then, if you’re feeling froggy, you can listen as Mark welcomes Val Cameron back to the show to discuss the film, along with Breaking (read Mark’s thoughts) and Honk For Jesus.**
Synopsis:
I was not prepared for Three Thousand Years of Longing. Lately, I’ve been trying to go into films watching as few trailers and reading as little information as I can, as those have both become more and more spoiler-y in terms of expectation in the last few years.
That said, all I knew about Three Thousand Years of Longing was that it had two actors I love (Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba) and involved a the old “three wishes” paradigm.
The fact it’s directed by George Miller, the man who brought the world Mad Max, was also intriguing.
Wow.
It would be easy to have this been just another Aladdin/Bedazzled/Monkey Paw kind of film, but Miller directs his two stars beautifully, steering between Swinton’s Alithea battling her insecurities while disguising it as mistrust of the “wishes” situation, and Elba’s lovelorn and desperate djinn, battling his own demons while trying to legitimately deal with Alithea.
What we get instead of a wish-fulfillment movie, then, is more akin to A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, with the djinn providing the fantastical storytelling as he attempts to persuade Alithea of his honorable intents in granting her wishes.
This is a film about stories. Our lead, Alithea, is a “narratologist,” someone who studies the stories that have permeated human history. The djinn, by contrast, is a storyteller, intent on passing knowledge through the tales of his various incarcerations. They are, if you will, somehow fated to have come together.
The visuals of the djinn’s past lives range from the royal court of Sheba to the dank underground of Turkey, to a claustrophobic, book-filled bedroom of his previous masters, and each is presented beautifully, and Elba’s melancholic narration suits each of them perfectly.
For Alithea’s emotionally desolate world, Swinton perfectly encapsulates a woman who has seemingly come to terms with her isolate lifestyle, presenting it as one in which she is comfortable and well-suited to.
But this is a self-serving lie, one told to allow her to function in the world she has made for herself, and one which is blown apart by her first wish.
That wish is a beautiful yet heart-wrenching one, an admission of vulnerability the djinn has long since acknowledged in himself, but one Alithea has long hidden away.
By the time of the inevitable conclusion, Miller has us firmly enmeshed in this unusual pairing of souls, and the audience is left wondering if they themselves might have the vulnerability to make Alithea’s first wish or the strength to make her second.
This film will certainly be talked about come awards season, and rightfully so.
It is sublime.
Three Thousand Years of Longing hits theaters on August 26 and stars Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba.
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