Three Thousand Years of Longing
MGMBy all appearances, Three Thousand Years of Longing is an unconventional film. If anything, it wears that proudly on its sleeve: from its otherworldly premise and mind-bending trailer to the disarming beauty of its actors. However, its biggest surprise is where it is going and what it’s ultimately about, which might make it one of the oddest and one of the most conventional films of the year.
Anyone seeking the fast pace or the adrenaline rush of George Miller’s previous film, Mad Max: Fury Road, be advised: slow your roll. Miller’s latest has no interest in crowd pleasing, cutting a slow, winding, and somewhat psychedelic path through the human history. When it intersects with the present it blooms into something entirely different. To put it bluntly: things take an unexpected turn.
The story begins with Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton), a narratologist visiting Istanbul for an academic conference. She describes herself as someone apart from everyone else and unfettered from any sort of relationship. In spite of this, she says she is content with this lifestyle, remaining buried in her books and imagination. “I find feelings through stories,” she admits, unaware of how those two things are about to merge.
Through happenstance she manages to free an imprisoned Djinn (Idris Elba) from a glass bottle she purchases at a local market. Upon realising she is bound to make three wishes, an extended negotiation begins between the two, and that is where the Djinn’s backstory comes in. It’s as if it their meeting destined to be: a scholar of stories crossing paths with a master storyteller.
it is within these flashbacks that the film really takes flight, giving an overview of the Djinn’s life. They explore time and loss in a way no one could understand, and it is clear he has endured heartbreak, loneliness and suffering in ways impossible to imagine. They also frame humanity as an impulsive and rather foolish race. Regardless of whether these characters make wishes or decisions, their selfish desires always lead to their downfall. As one of the characters forewarns, “The story never changes.”
It could be assumed that the Djinn stands apart from this madness, but not always. Although he has powers and conditional immortality, love has always been absent from his life, and without it he has never been at peace. The same could be said for Alithea, and once she understands this, the story takes off in an unexpected direction. It becomes a meditation on maturity and love packaged as a grown-up fairy tale. The question is whether Alithea’s choices will be as foolish as the others and whether her story will have a happy ending.
This is hardly surprising, since the film is based on the dream-like feminist novella of the same name by British author A.S. Byatt (however, there are some notable differences). The source material is steeped in African and Middle Eastern lore, and Miller – like Byatt – undoubtedly bring a European viewpoint to the proceedings. The film’s visuals are sharply detailed, trippy and gorgeous, but their context hasn’t escaped controversy regarding colonialism and race, continuing the same conversations around Denis Villeneuve’s Dune last year (warning: spoilers in links).
On the other hand, if this is stripped away it leaves an intriguing although flawed fable about love and being loved in return. Both Swinton and Elba are more than qualifiied to take on this material, but in comparison to the flashbacks their timeline is squeezed and a lot of its believability is a stretch. In comparison, some of the earliest scenes run too long or suggest there are plot holes, or the suggestion that what we’re seeing might be a tease. In fact, it’s possible that the story might have been better suited for a miniseries instead of a feature film. The material is so wide in scope and leaves so many lingering questions.
Still, as a whole, Three Thousand Years of Longing nearly makes up for these missteps in scope and ambition, and overall it seems more at home with passion projects that were made ten to fifteen years ago, like Tarsem’s The Fall, Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, or the Wachowski’s and Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas. Films like this are rarely made anymore, so seeing it in a theater is a rare treat, even if it doesn’t completely rise to the occasion.