Review: "Three Thousand Years of Longing"

George Miller's bombastic historical fantasia is utterly enchanting, if narratively lopsided.

Three Thousand Years of Longing (Dir. George Miller)

When I posted my last review for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis about two months back (jeez, that long?), a commenter noted how this blog often presented some, uh, exaggerated writing tendencies. Specifically, they found that my reviews sounded less like proper film criticism than “notes 15-year old film bros fanatically write at the back of a textbook after watching yet another ‘best movie of their lives.’” (The honesty, dude—it hurts.) The problem—at least for my own ego—is that this commenter was pretty much spot-on. The reviews I’ve posted here have been pretty glowing, and have often excused storytelling problems in favor of fanboyish appreciation. As an aspiring critic, this might be my biggest flaw: if I find something that I enjoy, I tend to revel in positivity, ignoring grander issues in the apparent brilliance before me. So, in the spirit of improvement and self-recognition, here’s an attempt to reconcile my film-bro fanaticism with even-handed criticism.

Adapted from A.S. Byatt’s short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” by Mad Max creator George Miller, Three Thousand Years of Longing is a bombastic rumination upon the nature of storytelling, one whose technical mastery is nearly unmatched. Its composition, pacing, design, and performances are all exquisitely tuned to Miller’s signature brand of gonzo craziness, bringing mythological tactility to every frame. Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, its lead performers, possess a naturally intense chemistry that often outdoes the film’s grand set pieces, which are themselves extraordinarily ornate. I walked out of the theater with that ineffable cinematic feeling that I had experienced something—that I had partaken in something significant. Yet this feeling does not save Three Thousand Years from itself. For a film that ruminates so intensely upon the nature of storytelling, a script by Miller and Augusta Gore doesn’t quite grasp how its third act should mesh with its overarching narrative. Ever intent on exploring new ground, Three Thousand Years of Longing can’t quite bring its parts into a unified whole. That the film feels more coherent than it actually is speaks to the magic of Miller’s direction and his lead performers: together, they conjure up historical fantasias that are transportive and enchanting in the extreme.

Tilda Swinton plays Alithea Binnie, an academic and narratologist who is world-renowned for her study of ancient myth. Alithea finds herself perfectly content with existence, and in her position, who wouldn’t? From what we see of her day-to-day activities, life is little more than academic conferences and posh hotel rooms. Swinton, perfect in the role, plays Alithea with easy intelligence and a calm demeanor—the exact traits of a woman whose life consists of easygoing scholarly brilliance.

The film opens at at one of her conferences in Istanbul, where Alithea presents to an audience of hundreds. Before a tableau of DC superheroes, Alithea describes how the gods of old have, in the present era, been “reduced to metaphor”—they lack the everday influence they once had. Midway through this presentation, Alithea sees something that contradicts her previous sentence: she spots a ghostly king sitting in the audience. He is draped in mystical garb, staring her down with eerie eyes. The figure lunges at her; its mouth seems to swallow her whole. As with all the uncanny visuals that appear throughout Three Thousand Years of Longing, this vision is rendered with computerized imagery that swirls in hypnotic dust and psychedelia—an exceptional aesthetic that transports us into the film’s enchanting otherworld. Alithea, a creature of reason, finds herself perplexed. She attributes her experience to an overactive imagination.

Imagination soon converges with reality when Alithea purchases a multi-millennia-old bottle from a Turkish antique store. From here, the story goes where you might expect: a Djinn (Idris Elba) emerges from the bottle, and tells her that he can only escape captivity after he fulfills his captor’s three wishes. As the title would imply, this Djinn is a creature of longing, and Elba plays him as such: a creature hoping desperately to please his unwitting captors. Alithea knows all these genie-in-a-bottle stories, however, and deduces that there will be a price to pay for such desirous wishes. What’s more, Alithea is already satisfied with life. What’s the point in seeking what you don’t have when you are perfectly content?

This is the fim’s central twist, as well as its jumping-off point for meandering conversations about theology, mythology, culture, and storytelling. To entice Alithea into her three wishes, the Djinn recounts the tales of his past captors, each of whom have failed in one way or another to fulfill that precious final wish. Stories of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, legends of palace intrigue in the Ottoman Empire, tragic romances in 20th century Turkey—these are sagas that span centuries; Elba’s passionate, captivating presence guides us through them. The Djinn’s stories, vizualized under Miller’s chaotic eye, feature lavishly decorated sets and costumes, recalling cinema’s sword-and-sandal past. Such set pieces are brilliantly captivating, but the film’s simplest scenes—serpentine conversations between Alithea and the Djinn in a hotel room—are just as riveting. Miller knows just when to pull away from his grand fantasias to the simplicity of two movie stars in their instant charisma.

Yet for all its bravura, Three Thousand Years is often unbalanced. The Djinn’s three stories of captivity don’t quite add up to a thematic whole—his obsession with fulfilling the desires of his women captors doesn’t intrinsically connect with the film’s questions about the power of narrative. The film’s final act, which brings the two leads away from their Istanbul chamber piece to London’s urban buzz, attempts to reconcile these subjects through a third-act romance, to little success. Discussions about love and consent, about contentedness with the present, are interesting in their own right, but not in a way that weaves together its disparate pieces. Enchanting cinematic details still abound: a meditative montage in which the Djinn reminisces about human innovation, the way that specks of dust take on an emotional significance about death and decay, Alithea’s conversation with her impressively xenophobic neighbors—these are magical moments, to be sure. But they lack the coherence that the film needs.

Yet as the film drew to a close, I found myself not really caring. I suppose I’m falling prey to my own fanboyish desires in saying so, but it would be dishonest to state otherwise. Miller’s willingness to use a $60 million special effects budget for such bombastic thoughfulness brought me to a state of utter enchantment—its outré otherworlds and beguiling performances roped me into its world; its philosophical ponderings enchanted me all the more. At the end of the day, Three Thousand Years of Longing doesn’t quite hold up to the power of that feeling. But I felt it nonetheless.