Three Thousand Years of Longing Review
★★★☆☆ George Miller’s “adult Aladdin” is an ambitious but uneven ode to storytelling.
More visual audacity courtesy of the madman from down under, Three Thousand Years of Longing is about as far away as you can get from the blood and chrome carnage of George Miller’s other, more famous world.
His latest film — starring the ever-chameleonic Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba — can be best described as Aladdin for adults; all the sparkle of Disney’s modern classic but with a cynical twist that can only come from those whose youth has long faded. It’s an enjoyable film on many levels, even if its charms begin to wear a little thin as it progresses.
Based on A.S. Byatt’s collection of short stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, the story centres around Alithea (Swinton — We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Grand Budapest Hotel), a lonely British professor who accidentally unleashes a powerful djinn (Elba — Luther, The Suicide Squad) during a work trip to Istanbul.
Granted three wishes, Alithea is initially sceptical of her unexpected hotel guest. Her curiosity grows, however, when the ancient djinn tells the story of how he became trapped in the bottle — a series of misadventures across time and empires, highlighting the allure and unique dangers of his life-altering abilities.
Half of Three Thousand Years of Longing is truly great. The first half, an anthology of stories told from a hotel room, is razor focused, accompanied by the same kind of otherworldly visual approach that made Mad Max: Fury Road such an eye-popping treat.
A lot of it is appropriately batshit insane. One particularly skin-crawling moment involves a demonic guard whose face melts off, turning into a spider monster that then bursts into a thousand smaller spider creatures. It’s head-scratching and gross, and quite brilliant.
But the madness, and quite a lot of interest, disappears as the film evolves quite sharply into a melodramatic romance. Swinton and Elba do their best and have great chemistry, but London shenanigans involving, among many other things, bickering with a pair of racist old ladies fail to match the surreal sepia-tinged excitement of what had come before.
It also doesn’t help that the film has been somewhat missold. Its marketing — understandably heavy on all the visual madness — has an irreverent feel, a vibe that doesn’t translate well into the film’s disappointingly dry opening credits and overall presentation outside its colourful stories. A jarring disconnect that couldn’t have helped its dismal run at the box office.
Despite its drawbacks, it’s a shame more didn’t give it a chance. For sheer originality and as a fun, grown-up alternative to the genie movie, Three Thousand Years of Longing is worth a rub. It’s another spectacle from Miller — one of cinema’s enduring maverick filmmakers. A dying breed of storyteller whose magic you wish you could just pour into a bottle.
Originally published at michaelkenny.uk
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