Three Thousand Years of Longing: Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton Make Magic in a Story About Storytelling
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A-minus
Director George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing, with its superb A-list cast led by Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, plays quite nicely as an intelligent, warm-hearted, visually beautiful, movie that can be enjoyed at face value.
But this movie about the transformational power of storytelling offers something deeper for those who want to go there.
We are given a head’s-up about that from the start. The movie begins with the voice of Alithea Bonnie (Swinton) who says she has something to tell us, and that the best way for her to do so is in the form of a story.
Idris uncorked: The Djinn meets his liberator, Tilda Swinton, in Three Thousand Years of Longing.
As it turns out, this is Alithea’s area of expertise. She is an academic, a “narratologist,” which is someone who studies stories, legends, myths from around the world. Middle-aged, level-headed, single, happy with her work and her life, she arrives in Istanbul to be a guest speaker.
Her talk is about the ubiquity of stories told through fables passed down from generation to generation and, how certain mythical characters appear in every culture.
Later, her host takes her shopping in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. They wander into an antique shop, where she digs out an old glass bottle of no apparent value that attracts her attention.
Back in her room, she starts to give it a gentle clean, but in doing so - whammo! - she loosens the stopper and unleashes a Djinn, or genie, played by Idris Elba.
And now the rational academic is face to face with a force she didn’t actually ever believed existed.
Of course, he offers her three wishes, and qualifies the parameters of what constitutes a wish —example: you can’t wish for infinite wishes—and it has to be heartfelt. She can’t wish for a warm up for her tea.
She’s not interested. But, it’s a non-negotiable for him. Because she’s “uncorked” him, she absolutely has to use the three wishes. His fate is now tied to that. Fulfilling three wishes for her is his only route to freedom, whatever that means to him.
Wishes, and more to the point, stories about how wishes can go awry, are part of Alithea’s stock and trade. So why should she trust him and his offer of granting her deepest desires, whatever they are? Plus she is content with her life and doesn’t feel any unanswered needs.
So, she challenges him. The two sit down and she begins to ask questions. The Djinn, who is an immortal, ancient, and, of course, magical being, has not had it easy.
And to explain, he tells her three stories about his life, starting 3000 years ago, when he was a confidante of, and the Djinn to, the Queen of Sheba. This caused him to make the first of several mistakes that caused him harm.
His sincere desire to do his job, to understand the deep desires of whose wishes he must fulfill, have cost him. Djinn may not be human, but he has an emotional life. And through him telling his stories, and listening to hers, things change for both Alithea and Djinn.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is based on a short story by A.S. Byatt called “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye.” Miller adapted it with co-writer Augusta Gore.
They’ve built much of the adaptation around the dialogue between the Djinn and Alithea. Which means for a long time they sit in her hotel room in white bathrobes and talk.
He tells her his stories from three points in history, a little like the tales from 1001 Arabian Nights. And we see them play out on screen. The art direction and costume design are rich and sumptuous.
Miller (of Mad Max fame) has directed this with a light touch. And it is possible to sit back and enjoy the story as it unfolds. But there is more there than what meets the eye, and he couldn’t have chosen two better actors than Swinton and Elba. They bring a level of ferocity and intelligence to the proceedings, and a genuine sense of connection and exchange. Vulnerability and empathy without melodrama.
Director Miller has had the rights to Byatt’s story for more than 20 years. But it’s interesting that it became a COVID project for him. The themes of the film - story-telling and its transcendent power to lift the human spirit, how it can reach us in ways that go beyond logic and open doors that we didn’t know were shut - seem particularly appropriate after two years of lockdown. Its emotional impact addresses our widespread sense of isolation and being cut off.
It’s enough to enjoy it as presented. But, if you are inclined to let it work its magic, Three Thousand Years of Longing has much to say about what the stories we tell about ourselves can do for us.
Three Thousand Years of Longing. Directed by George Miller, written by George Miller and Augusta Gore. Stars Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Opens in theatres, Friday, August 26.