In the scene that really kicks off the story, the two main characters speak ancient Greek fluently to each other for minutes. When something like this happens in a film, which almost never happens, you have a specific target audience in mind – teachers of Ancient Greek, students of Ancient Greek, students and professors of classical philology. So rather few.
Not the target audience of a Hollywood movie with a not exactly small budget, anyway. From a director who, although old, is at a new zenith in his work since he brought the insane action hit “Mad Max: Fury Road” to cinemas in 2015. The film immediately became a classic not only of its own genre. But if you think about the fact that this George Miller also made two films about a talking piglet in the nineties – “A Pig Called Babe” and its sequel – you can better understand what he might have been thinking, a huge one Letting genie (Idris Elba) loose on a somewhat stiff humanist (Tilda Swinton) with all that that means (namely a dialogue in ancient Greek, for example, “I took a few courses,” she says).
Swinton plays Alithea Binnie, a narratologist attending a convention in Istanbul, in this film adaptation of a short story by British author AS Byatt. At the Grand Bazaar she buys a small old glass bottle and when she gets to grips with it back at the hotel with her electric toothbrush, the cork pops out and a jinn escapes in puffs of purple smoke. He only gets his freedom back from the bottle prison if he grants his liberator three wishes. The only problem is: Alithea is happy, or rather perfectly satisfied. She is single, has a job that suits her and makes a good living from it. A congress somewhere in the world twice a year – what else could be desired? In addition, as a woman from the field, she knows that without exception, every wish-fulfilment story contains a warning as its essence. Be careful what you wish for
For the scenes from the life of the Djinn, George Miller unleashes some bombast
The two start chatting about this problem in Alithea’s luxurious hotel room, both in fluffy bathrobes and the Djinn talks about his millennia-long life. From his obsessive love for the Queen of Saaba, played by Ugandan model Aamito Lagum, that ended in his first imprisonment and further love stories that, like the wishes, always ended in the worst. Not only is the Djinn powerful, he’s also a bit moody from his multiple broken heart. Idris Elba, who still appears bigger and more massive than he really is due to a camera trick, plays it wonderfully. You want to comfort him, but very respectfully scratch his pointed Djinno ears. And the fact that Tilda Swinton masters the type of “eccentric clever woman” to perfection doesn’t really have to be mentioned anymore.
So it’s a lot of fun to watch the two of them talk and George Miller unleashes some bombast of sets and computer images for the genie’s tales. All too often it looks a little too implausibly colorful and at the same time retains something claustrophobic. One feels as imprisoned in all the palaces, harem halls and Turkish ladies’ rooms as the spirit in the various vessels into which it always ends up.
You can’t shake the feeling that there could have been more liberation, insanity and decadence – what else are genie wishes for? But still: The fact that George Miller tells such a highly ambitious story here with the means of blockbuster cinema, which actually cannot exist in contemporary cinema – a mixture of fairy tales, cultural history and eccentricity, one can be so happy about that that it doesn’t go further into the weight falls.
The fourth act of “Three Thousand Years of Longing” changes the tone of the film once again in the most beautiful way. In the end, Alithea thinks of a wish that the Djinn should fulfill for her. She takes him with her to London, it gets melancholy, the great ecstasy is denied to her and the audience here too. But at the end there is a feeling that is also worth a lot: satisfaction with a good dash of longing.
Three Thousand Years of Longing, USA, UK 2022. Director: George Miller. Screenplay: G. Miller, August Gore, AS Byatt. Camera: John Seale. Starring: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba. Leonine, 106 minutes. Theatrical release: September 1, 2022.