Three Thousand Years of Longing

It is stunningly amazing movie, loved the fantasy elements and how they were portraited. The two main actors were really good in their roles. The love story might not be for everyone I guess but I really enjoyed it. It was not that random as people say. And in a way it is a happy ending so kudos for that.

Beautiful in every detail, Tilda and Idris delivering an astonishing performance by simply talking about what love really is.

_Three Thousand Years of Longing_ is, in classic George Miller fashion, a visual treat that contains a lot of heart, with a compelling romance at its core and enthralling vignettes of a Djinn's life that make for an enriching, thought provoking experience of a movie. Seldom do I feel compelled to analyze a movie immediately after watching it, and yet here am I doing just that. Do yourself a favour and lock yourself in a dark room and watch this movie, pay attention, and I believe you will be rewarded with while not a perfect experience, a wholly gratifying one that is at the very least a treat for the eyes and the ears.


Spoilers ahead.

[spoiler]
The characters of Alithea and the Djinn are strong, well thought out characters that from the beginning are set up to be connected in a way few are, particularly through Alithea. The movie does this by setting up themes of loneliness, connection, and love, and uniting the characters through their beliefs in these three ideals.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Alithea is portrayed as someone who, as she would herself describe, is perfectly content with her life as a narratologist, as someone who studies and understands stories. She says as much during her early interactions with the Djinn, saying she cannot wish for any true desire because she is lacking in one. But it is rather plain to see that this isn't the case, as much as she might insist it is.
The first way we might realize this is through the two djinn / demons we see her haunted by before she meets the Djinn. What the exact nature of these are is not specified by the movie, but I personally feel these represent ghosts of her conscious; her own mind forcing upon her the reality that everything *isn't* ok and she perhaps might have some issues. She's clearly capable of inventing fictional characters to solve her problems, loneliness in the case of her childhood, so I don't think it's a stretch to say she could do the same in a more negative fashion.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
The second is in the way she describes her marriage as having broken down. She describes herself as being unable to feel out emotions of others, which led to the downfall of her marriage. She claims to be content with solitude as it affords her more time to spend immersing herself in stories and less in trying to work around the complicated emotions of others. Of course, the reason, as she says herself, she is so fond of stories and storytelling is that they allow her to feel the emotions of others without having to figure them out herself. A lot of this reminds me of what Brandon Sanderson writes about in [Outside](https://www.brandonsanderson.com/blogs/blog/outside). He writes stories to get in the minds of others; Alithea reads stories to get in the mind of others.
It is through this that the movie sets up that, despite her outright dismissal of the idea, there is something that she desires: the ability to understand and feel the emotions of another. This fundamental aspect of Alithea's character is what makes her compelling and is what makes the romance between herself and the Djinn work.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Speaking of the Djinn, his character is either laid more bare or less, depending on how you wish to interpret the movie. George Miller's Mad Max movies provide a series of stories that can be interpreted as more mythos than "reality", and I believe some of that bleeds in here. From a straightforward perspective, we can believe the Djinn's words as he speaks them. He is but a naive fool, doomed to fall in love, be cursed from it, and do it all over again. And the stories he tells demonstrate this.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
The story of the Queen of Sheba and his betrayal by her and her eventual lover King Solomon is the first of his set of three. His unyielding love for her blinds him to her shifting favour as Solomon manages to rizz the queen through the use of that wildly designed instrument with its own four hands to play a second set of strings and a mouth to play a wind instrument. The Djinn is unable to remove himself from the situation due to his love for him, much to his own downfall as he ends up trapped in a bottle at the bottom of the ocean. His recounting of these events paints him as a hopeless romantic, and this continues with the following stories.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Once his bottle washes up, Gülten finds the bottle and ends up having a more typical monkey's paw genie arc compared to the rest of the wish-makers. This story does not involve the Djinn falling in love to the same extent, but it does have him once again make caring choices at his own expense. She, blinded by her love for Mustafa, wishes first for him to fall in love with her and secondly to be pregnant with his child, despite the Djinn's protests. This, in classical genie-curse fashion, leads to her own demise as a plot to usurp Mustafa's claim to the throne is put in motion and she ends up targeted. This leads to the Djinn desperately trying to get her to wish to save herself and free him, only for his finally selfish efforts to be in vain as she is killed while the Djinn is stopped by some dark forces the movie spends little effort elaborating on. This leads him to be left, wandering the halls of the palace for a hundred years before his story can continue. The Djinn is a more passive actor until the end of this part of the story, but I think this serves less as a reflection of his emotions at the time and more of what he sees in Gülten. He has demonstrated himself to be a sort of hopeless romantic, and ultimately, while presumably bound by his role as a djinn, he is also bound to fulfill her wishes as he relates to her desire to want love.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
And the story continues with the two brothers Murad IV and Ibrahim. He first attempts to lead Murad to the hidden spot where his bottle has been hidden for a hundred years, leading him to the spot various times before Murad ends up dying of his alcoholism. His attempts to do the same to Ibrahim fail as he is more concerned with his harem of overweight women, a concept so classically George Miller he's done it in two of his movies (that I've seen at least). Fortunately for the Djinn, one of the women in his harem ends up discovering his bottle, thought unfortunately for him she wishes him back in the bottle to be left to the bottom of the ocean.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
The final story is the strongest argument the Djinn shows in his favour, as he finds himself fallen in love with Zefir, a girl forced into sexual slavery from the age of twelve. She, at an older age, discovers the Djinn and wishes for knowledge, which he grants by bringing her books and teaching her all of the knowledge of the world, and falls in love with her mind. He ends up so subservient to her that he imprisons himself in the bottle willingly; the final instance unfortunately timed with Zefir's angry wish that she would forget knowing him, which she does as he enters the bottle for a final time before he would be found by Alithea.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
I see two possible interpretations of the Djinn's stories. Either he is truthful, and truly desires to be freed from his chains but he desires love and connection more, or he is the trickster he claims not to be, and the stories are simply a ruse, drawing on the connection he is able to manifest with Alithea to get her to make wishes to free him. I find the second interpretation somewhat difficult given the later events of the movie, which we'll get to.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
We have then two characters, Alithea who seeks to understand another and the Djinn who seeks from but (claims) to seek connection even more. And through the Djinn's stories Alithea finally finds herself able to understand another, as she comes to the sudden realization to halfway through the third story. It is this that leads to a seemingly abrupt switch from not having any desires to making her wish, that being that the Djinn would fall in love with her. I personally feel that this moment is the peak of the movie character wise, as all the setup for Alithea and the Djinn's characters have led to this moment.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
We then end up with the two uniting together, as she flies back home to London with a brief scare in the airport as she thinks for a second an x-ray machine may have killed while we see an actor from one of the Djinn's stories as a security guard, another hint that the reality presented in the movie may not be exactly as it appears. We see them live their lives together for a while, before they have a conversation where we can see the slightest hint of the Djinn beginning to fade, as soft dusty particles start to come off his body, a hint that is paid off on in the next seen as Alithea finds the Djinn sleeping in the basement with her house filled with the dust of his physical form, and she uses her second wish to get him to talk to her. A moment later, in an emotional and extremely well acted scene by both Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, she wishes him to move on, to go to the place he claimed to desire so much because him being with her was hurting him, and this interaction is the culmination of their connection. Despite the fact that their relationship is build on Alithea's wish, a fact she notes herself, I feel it was a genuine connection from the Djinn to be the person Alithea could finally understand. This is reinforced when, in the final scene of the movie, he returns to visit her, despite no longer being bound as Alithea has wished all three wishes. Their relationship is what ended the Djinn's three thousand years of longing, and what ended Alithea's lifetime of longing.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Not only does this movie execute strongly in the writing, but visually there is a lot going on here. The visual effects of the Djinn using his powers in any way are really cool to look at, there are a lot of really neat particle simulations that lend an ethereal quality to his existence. Adding to his superhuman appearance, my favourite detail is the specks of blue and gold in his impossibly smooth skin, along with the scaly mermaid leg thing he has going on. George Miller has an eye for eye-grabbing visuals, and this movie has so many of them the whole time. From the Turkish shop where Alithea buys the bottle originally to the room where Zefir does her learning and loving with the Djinn, the sets feel so real and visually satisfying to look at. There are plenty of really interesting cuts and camera moves too; George Miller has such an interesting directorial style that makes even a "simple" movie like this feel so much more visually interesting than what I feel a lesser director would do.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Additionally, the soundtrack and soundscape of this movie are subdued but extremely effecting. The surround sound mix is incredible and brings such a depth to the scenes where the Djinn is invisible and haunting palace halls. The soundtrack is excellent too, used sparingly but to great effect.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
As for the fantasy aspects of this movie, aside from the Djinn himself there are a couple moments of ethereal beasts and strange creatures appearing, notably the two creatures that Alithea sees before meeting the Djinn, and the one guard the Djinn sees while attempting to save Gülten who turns into a spider. The guard makes a reference to some being whom the Djinn is acting against, a reference that is never explained nor followed up on. Similar goes for the creatures that Alithea sees. These unexplained aspects don't really take anything away for the movie, they are simply oddities that expand the scope of the world we see that I thought were worth mentioning.
[/spoiler]

_Three Thousand Years of Longing_ is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but there is enough movie here that you can at the very least appreciate the artistry that went into it, even if not everyone will be able to feel it was executed as strongly as it could have been. After this and the Mad Max series, George Miller is doing an incredible job as solidifying himself as one of my favourite directors.


5/5

I reviewed this film for the Hugo-winning blog Nerds of a Feather:

www.nerds-feather.com/2022/09/love-is-freely-chosen-yoke-in-three.html

When all cinema has to offer these days are rehashes, sequels and prequels, it's nice when you find a product that's truly unique. Although based on a short story by A.S. Byatt, Three Thousand Years Waiting for You is new and original, and that alone makes it worth seeing.

But it is also an excellent film about betrayal, desires and waiting. But above all, it is a film about love. Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton give an impeccable performance (which one can easily imagine in a play), interspersed with visual effects that are delightful. Both keep you gripped and your heart in a fist, doubting whether it will end as you think it will, or whether this story, as the protagonist says, will be written by her in her own handwriting.

An Australian surprise from a director who has accustomed us to visual spectacles (Mad Max: Fury Road).

A sprawling, fantastic love story told with stunning production and subtle craft. Don’t skip the big screen experience on one of the greatest filmmakers to ever do it.

Loving crafted and well acted film where the characters mostly swap stories and discuss what it means to love.

The pacing is a bit weird and slow at times but overall the movie has a lot to say and says it well. It reminded me of The Fall in some ways, and I mean that as a compliment.

What an unusual movie. The pacing was erratic and the arc was fractured but the one thing that could hold this film together was going to be the casting of the two lead characters and they nailed it. Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba were the glue for this far sweeping fantasy. It wasn’t until the credits rolled that I realized we had been serenaded by a beautiful score from the very beginning. This will not be a film for everyone but in it’s genre it is fresh and transcendent. I give this film an 8 (an homage to the power of stories) out of 10. [Drama Romance]

Good movie. The story kept me interested. At the end of the day I'd say it was a love story.

Most of the movie takes place over a night in a hotel room. But the Jinn is telling stories about his past. I enjoyed each of the stories and the way they progressed you through the film. Overall it was just a good movie with a great story.

Best film Idris Elba has starred in. It's about loneliness, longing, memories and magic. This film is really so well written and produced it really has thrilled me. This is a film where the dialogue matters, almost an adult fairy tale. Beautiful