TTYOL_09105_R Tilda Swinton stars as Alithea Binnie and Idris Elba as The Djinn in director George Miller’s film THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film Photo credit: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc. © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved
Filmmaker George Miller’s follow up to MAD MAX: FURY ROAD isn’t as much of a high octane ride as it is a highly nuanced, deeply layered rumination on character and storytelling. THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING confronts its audience, challenging us to engage both our hearts and heads during the journey that lies ahead. Based on A.S. Byatt’s “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” and adapted by Miller and Augusta Gore, it’s a haunting bedtime story for adults that makes for a two-hander played expertly by two of our finest performers, Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton.
Skilled narratologist/ dramaturge Alithea (Swinton) is a loner who finds comfort in other people’s stories, specifically fictionalized tales from all over the world. As a world traveler, she seeks common truths in all stories. Lately, though, she’s been sensing her carefully compartmentalized world shifting. On her trip to Istanbul, Turkey, while speaking at a conference, she’s visited by destabilizing visions that cause her to faint. Yet nothing compares to when she unwittingly unleashes a giant Djinn (Idris Elba), freeing him from his glass bottle, a crystal sarcophagus which has imprisoned him the last hundred years.
Turns out this Djinn’s curse began thousands of years prior when he professed a forbidden love. Since then he’s been trying to finish his duty by granting three wishes in order to be set free. He’s hoping Alithea will be able to fulfil her heart’s desires with his help. However, his skeptical recipient feels that wishes are cautionary, more of a curse than personalized wish-fulfillment fantasy. The two banter back and forth, mostly with the Djinn recounting his past misadventures throughout time trying to break free. Those tales not only provide Alithea with a base of knowledge of what not to do, but also exercise her professional critical thinking on human nature and desire.
The Djinn’s journeys, spanning the history of the country and the foils of its wealthy and poor, are where the auteur and his colleagues apply skillful visual dexterity. While each segment is narratively differentiated, the look of each fragmented, fairytale-inspired fantasy also feels unique whilst cohering to a larger picture. John Seale’s painterly cinematography is incandescent and vibrant, functioning in concert with Roger Ford’s exquisite production design and Kym Barrett’s tangibly textured costume design.
Despite lacking in some much needed thematic resonance on the existential questions it posits, how these tales impact, motivate and drive these characters remains consistent. It also raises our own critical consciousness, for better or worse, and, in this case, occasionally is hoisted by its own petard. The filmmakers themselves seem to inadvertently get themselves into a bit of a pickle, most evident in the 3rd act, when some of the racial politics and optics become sticky. A white woman essentially in charge of a black man’s destiny and agency – otherworldly being aside, something Alithea’s overtly racist neighbors don’t realize when meeting the Djinn – is handled awkwardly and aches for better finesse. It’s a disservice to the narrative’s noteworthy, heartrending sentiments about love, loss and yearning.
THREE THOUSDAND YEARS OF LONGING opens in theaters on August 26.
