Hope you had a good Labor Day weekend; I sure had. And thanks to Tom for allowing me a week off to recharge myself. Honestly HBO Max dropped Elvis that weekend and it was very good, one of the most exhilarating films I saw all summer. This season saw the biggest dearth, a desert wasteland in terms of good content. Which makes this sad to see a release in August with as much complete originality get treated like dirt. It is not; more like an oasis. Love it or hate it, Three Thousand Years of Longing is clearly the work of a singular filmmaker creating what they want.
A victim of poor marketing if any; the trailers and tv ads proclaimed, “From The Mind of George Miller director of Mad Max: Fury Road.” Bad decisions were made. Lest we forget, this is the same man who made Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet, and The Witches of Eastwick. You can’t pin Miller down like a butterfly; he needs to soar.
Upon first impressions this seems like a modern take on Aladdin or The Arabian Nights. Certainly, the imagery conjured evokes this aesthetic. Based A.S Byatt’s short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, we first meet Alithea on her way to a conference in Istanbul. We can tell something is off from the inclusion of Tilda Swinton. The actress is nothing if not a scavenger of weird scripts. She is immaculate nonetheless. While retrieving luggage and conducting lectures, Alithea gets accosted by all manner of demons and magical creatures. She brushes them off as hallucinations, even after fainting. Portentous, her trip to a bazaar yields a find in a blown glass bottle. Well-versed audiences will anticipate what happens next.
In an admittedly humorous scene with an electric toothbrush, out of the bottle pops a Djinn (genie being the Anglo-sized term). Appearing massively with puffs of purple ether this wish-granter offers as he puts it, “whatever your heart desires.” And coming from Idris Alba’s booming voice, the expectations seem many. A million things ran across my mind; what fathoms of wants such an offer intreats.
Alithea’s reaction is rather skeptical. You see, she is a scholar of myth and narrative. She knows where this leads; tricksters and monkey’s paws abound. Claiming she has no wants, Alithea knows wishing brings only downfall. With a do-not-disturb sign on her room door, a lengthy debate brews between the pair which leads to the Djinn telling his sad story. Through flashback we see his love for the Queen of Sheba which lead to his imprisonment. Forlorn concubines, despondent sultans and yearning merchant wives all alike; only serve to strengthen Alithea’s resolve. Some might find these voiceover passages tedious. I found myself, however, to be captivated in visual splendor.
Miller conducts a symphony with his team is terms of set and costume. Even though Alithea and the Dijnn only leave for England in the last third, the fragrant spirit of the Middle East still holds with Tom Holkenborg’s score. Much like how his work on Fury Road propelled momentum, his use of Arabic strings and winds bring color. Peppering the story, they invite us into its world.
If you think you know where Three Thousand Years of Longing is going, it has another card up its sleeve. Fans of Mad Max will be disappointed; just wait for his next installment. I had a chuckle when Marvel characters came up in the opening lecture. Miller doesn’t have any opinions. The tale of Alithea and the Djinn is a love story, a myth in the oral tradition of old. This is taking epic filmmaking to the extreme, jousting at windmills. You have to admire the ambition. And it left me questioning what my heart truly desires. For me it is more risks in Hollywood like this.
