Trailer ‘Three thousand years of desire’
A trailer for director George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” movie, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film
Chicago – George Miller is enamored with storytelling, and he wants everyone to know it. The latest film from the director of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’, is not content with dropping affectionate hints about Miller’s lover – such as making the lead actor, Scottish academic Dr. . Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton), a “narratologist”, that is, one who studies stories for a living. No, he also feels the need to incorporate starry-eyed odes to the story’s magic into both his dialogue and plot, the latter of which is taken from “A Thousand and One Nights” by English novelist AS Byatt.
These immersive touches are presented seriously. You get the impression that Miller – who has had great success as a storyteller himself – is completely serious when he states that myths and fables are the glue that holds all human culture, history and psychology together. And he is not wrong. There’s a reason Swinton’s character specialty exists. But it’s amusingly ironic that a film so passionate about character and structure is so lukewarm on both counts.
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About ‘Three Thousand Years of Desire’: Idris in a Bottle
Tilda Swinton in George Miller’s Movie THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF DESIRE A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Movie Photo Credit: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc. © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All rights reserved
Much of the film is set in a luxury hotel suite in Istanbul, where Alithea is locked up the day before after a disastrous presentation at an academic conference. She considers another day of sightseeing – alone, of course, because Alithea is always alone. She claims that she prefers to do it this way, especially since she has practiced a lot. But then she tries to clean a nicely worn glass bottle that she bought on a whim while shopping at one of the many antique markets of the city. Her fastidiousness unleashes an ancient jinn (Idris Elba), a creature of Middle Eastern folklore, described as an unseen spirit who falls somewhere between an angel and a man in the heavenly hierarchy. They also sometimes fulfill wishes, which they are especially known for in the West.
The jinn’s first appearance sets the stage for magic: So large that it fills Alithea’s spacious room, the jinn swings one electromagnetic finger and immediately absorbs the last 150 years of human history through a flipping television screen. After Alithea’s first attempts at communicating with the ghost in ancient Greek, he does her a favor by shrinking down to a more manageable size and changing his mode of communication to boring old English. Without the pointy ears and the glittering body shine, he would look like an ordinary hotel guest, swathed in his fluffy white bathrobe and sitting down for a nice long chat. It turns out that the jinn is also obsessed with fairy tales, because he has experienced them.
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Idris Elba stars as The Djinn and Tilda Swinton as Alithea Binnie in director George Miller’s film THREE DHOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Movie Photo Credit: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc. © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Ma
See ‘Three Thousand Years of Desire’ for: lascivious carnal excess
Miller always delivers a spectacle, and “Three Thousand Years of Longing” is no exception. The general mode is one of voluptuous carnal excess, as the jinn treats a riveting Alithea with tales of his many mistresses over the millennia. These include a first-person account of the story of Sheba (Aamito Lagum), the half-jinn cousin and lover of the jinn, and how he lost her to the biblical king Solomon (Nicolas Mouawad). From there, we’ll go on a comprehensive tour of an Ottoman castle: the camera’s gaze lingers on sumptuous fabrics, sumptuous banquets, and the rolls of meat on the Rubenesque concubines lingering in the background. That is the setting for the second story of the jinn, a tale of forbidden desire and palace intrigue.
One last story, this one about the jinn’s passion for a 19th-century Turkish woman named Zefir (Burcu Gölgedar) – a mathematical genius reduced to the hated third wife of a merchant by virtue of her gender – and it’s Alithea’s turn to to share hair wishes with her immortal companion. She claims to be far too logical to fall for a jinn’s legendary penchant for trickery and ironic rewards. But neither he nor the film seem convinced when she says she is completely satisfied with her quiet, disciplined life and therefore wants nothing.
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Tilda Swinton stars as Alithea Binnie and Idris Elba as The Djinn in director George Miller’s film THREE DHOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Movie Photo Credit: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc. © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Ma
Once the film finally breaks down Alithea’s walls and reveals her heart’s desire, “Three Thousand Years of Longing” loses its narrative dynamism. The story continues in fits and starts. But the spell is broken, and we don’t learn much more about the characters than we did when they debated the dialectic of fairy tales. This is an intoxicating film, with big ideas. But it walks around with its head in the clouds, oblivious to its own flaws, whether they be structural or thematic, or visual.
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“Thre Thousand Years of Longing” was a passion project for Miller, raising $60 million for production. That seems like a lot, until you consider the epic scope of the scenes in this movie that aren’t just two movie stars talking in a hotel room. And those are the ones who suffer the most from the film’s relatively limited budget, expansive vistas created with CGI that would have cost twice as much to render convincingly. Attempting to pull everything off in this script on a less-than-blockbuster budget was crazy folly in its own right. And while much of it falls away, it’s heartwarming to see a filmmaker risk everything for love – even if he’s a little irritating about it. People in love often are.
Grade B-
Idris Elba stars as The Djinn and Tilda Swinton as Alithea Binnie in director George Miller’s filmTHREE DHOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures filmPhoto credit: Elise Lockwood© 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All rights reserved
In theaters August 26. 108 minutes. Direction: George Miller. Of: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba.
About the writer: Katie Rife is a film critic, programmer and former senior writer for The AV Club. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vulture and Indiewire, among others.
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Labyrinth (1986): This musical classic by Jim Henson stars with an unforgettable David Bowie in an unforgettable wig and an unforgettable pair of trousers. Bowie plays Jareth the Goblin King, the lavishly hairy opponent of Jennifer Connelly’s determined young heroine Sarah. Come for the twists (it’s a layrinth, get it?) but stay for “Dance Magic Dance”. Rated PG. 101 minutes. Direction: Jim Henson. Also with Toby Foud.
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How to watch ‘Three Thousand Years of Desire’
“Three Thousand Years of Longing” can now be seen nationwide. It is currently not available to stream.
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