Three Thousand Years of Longing is George Miller’s big follow-up to his 2015 hit Mad Max Fury Road. This time he makes a modern fairy tale that’s a bold yet divisive film.
Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is a narratologist who goes to Istanbul for a conference. Whilst exploring the Grand Bazaar she buys a glass bottle. At her hotel, she discovers that the bottle contains a Djinn (Idris Elba) who can grant Alithea three wishes. However, Alithea is hesitant, so The Djinn tells her about his life over the centuries to reassure her.
George Miller has had a long career as a filmmaker. He’s still going at the age of 77. The success of Mad Max Fury Road gave Miller license to do anything, so he chose to make a big-budget art-house film. Three Thousand Years of Longing stands out in today’s cinematic landscape of superhero films, special effects-heavy action films, and established Intelligential Property. What Miller made was a film like Ang Lee’s adaptation of Life of Pi, a lavish, special effects-heavy film that was not an action film.
Another film Three Thousand Years of Longing can be compared to is the 1994 adaptation of Interview With The Vampire. Both films were about supernatural creatures telling their life story to a mortal. The Djinn told his story of love and betrayal. However, two-thirds of Three Thousand Years of Longing can be summed up as two people having a conversation in a hotel room. The most interesting twist was Alithea’s knowledge because she knows how many stories about wishing were cautionary tales, so she was reluctant to use her three wishes.
Three Thousand Years of Longing was based on a collection of short stories. The film felt like that because it was split into different stories. The first was set in Biblical times, then it moved to the height of the Ottoman Empire’s power, and to the middle of the 19th Century. Most of these stories were about The Djinn’s masters, but there were times that the film went off on tangents like the story involving the Sultan and his brother.
The style of storytelling gave the film a sense of emotional detachment. The Djinn narrated the stories, so the actions on screen weren’t allowed to speak for themselves. The film did speed through things potentially interesting stories like The Djinn following the court intrigue in Suleiman the Magnificent’s court, and how the Djinn falls in love with one of his masters but these weren’t fully explored.
Three Thousand Years of Longing did have a troubling view on women. All The Djinn’s masters were women, and all his problems were caused by women. The Djinn either fell in love with some woman which led to trouble for him, or they didn’t listen to his advice which also led to trouble. It was unconformable.
One of the more interesting aspects of the film was showing how the world changed over the centuries. Alithea did state at the beginning of the film that people created myths, legends and gods to explain things they didn’t understand and science replaced these concepts when their understanding improved. The first story The Djinn told was about the Queen of Sheba (Aamito Lagum) and it looked like it was set in a 300-style fantasy world. The Queen of Sheba’s count contained anthropomorphic animals and one man played an unusual instrument. As the film progressed the fantasy elements disappeared as science, mathematics, and engineering took over. The film had story potential to show The Djinn living in and exploring the modern world, but it was fleeting.
Three Thousand Years of Longing was a film I wanted to like more. It was a fantastic-looking film with big ideas but narratively it was lacking.
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Summary
A visually bold film that had potential because of its big concepts but was let down by the storytelling.
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