Three Thousand Years of Longing (MGM, R)
There are few things that get me interested in a movie as quickly as the words, “Starring Idris Elba.” I’m just being honest. The man is a spectacle and an undeniable talent. When you happen to follow those words up with, “and Tilda Swinton,” I’ve already left my house, keys in hand. I’m a simple man with simple needs. I’ll be straight up and honest with you. Also, because I can’t refrain from mentioning it, this is a George Miller movie. There are dozens of team-ups over the last decade I can think of, based on their star-power alone, that have brought me out to the theater. Dislike of the term star-power notwithstanding, it’s something that seems relatively tried and true. These “team-ups” have different effects, sure, but the myriad combinations of known names in the film industry almost always promises a unique combination of predictable things. And I know what I just said was confusing, so let me clarify.
When Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie starred in the Michael Bay film Pain and Gain we may not have fully understood what we were going to get, but we did know four things for a fact. Wahlberg is funny and a great lead, Johnson is also funny and an above average co-star, and (at the time) Mackie was the supporting role guy. All comedic, all good at sharing the screen. Add to those known quantities one Producer/Director Michael Bay, a guy known for bombastic, funny, action-packed buddy-cop or ensemble movies. It wasn't impossible to head into that theater in 2013 with a pretty good Idea what kind of film you were going to get. Three Thousand Years of Longing is Idris Elba, a man with a deep and intimate command over the camera, Tilda Swinton, a woman with the artistic capabilities of a Shakespearean chameleon, and wrap them together with George Miller, the mind that directed every Mad Max, Babe: Pig in the City, and both Happy Feet movies, and I was able to surmise three things: The close, quiet moments would be unwaveringly intimate and deeply engaging, the loud moments would be off the walls and insultingly creative, and the overall experience would likely leave the theater in silence. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to prepare yourself for an experience. It dulls the shock and awe and gives way to a quiet and quite nearly violent sense of longing.
On its face, Three Thousand Years of Longing is a tale of a woman who finds a genie in a bottle and is granted three wishes. It’s not an unfamiliar story, and often times it these stories walk the line of cautionary tale more than anything. It’s hard to imagine getting their heart’s desire granted three times and not see the possibility of deeply problematic requests. These requests are rarely dangerous on the surface, but nevertheless their repercussions thunder onward, impacting the world around them. The way this movie approaches djinn and their wish granting ability is fully self-aware of these potential pitfalls. Idris’s Djinn, upon his first appearance, sets the ground rules immediately. But rather than diving immediately into Alithea’s (Swinton) wishes, instead we get a detailed history of our Djinn’s journey. Alithea is wary, and seems to believe that she is content and doesn’t desire to use her wishes. So instead we follow the Djinn all the way back to his first home with the Queen of Sheba.
Immediately, Three Thousand Years of Longing stands out in its visual vocabulary. It’s 2022, we have seen Djinn and genies dozens of times. Ranging from blue comedians as seen in Aladdin to smoky and dangerous spirits as seen in Netflix’s Witcher series. George Miller and his VFX team portray Idris in a fascinatingly unique light. He is scaled below the waist, his ears are pointed, his palms are a bright red that shifts into shining gold at the fingertips and backs of his hands. He is also immense. Idris is a tall man, at six feet and two inches tall, but Tilda isn’t short herself. So when he looms over her five foot eleven frame, the mysticality of this Djinn is easily contextualized. Magic in this movie is dazzling and mysterious. The Djinn, of course, materializes in a jet of smoke and colorful dust, but the process is beautifully illustrated.
Honestly, there are pages and pages that someone could likely write about the special effects of this film. Demons and Djinn, magical musical instruments and fantastical spells for obtaining and storing the knowledge of the world. These things are present in abundance and stunning in representation. But I find it far less interesting to fill this review with the descriptions of effects and sequences made to be seen. You really do have to see them to get the full effect and impact. What matters the most to this film, in my eyes, rests not in the large and bombastic, but instead in what most movies of this intent see as gimcrack and bric-a-brac. In those scenes that other movies with the same characters would have relegated to small filler moments, Three Thousand Years of Longing wrings its soul out into the quietest moments.
Idris and Tilda are intoxicating on screen together. They each have their own unique and well-known timbre, and together their voices dance and intertwine like musical arrangement. The Djinn’s story is long and fraught with sadness and conflict and dismay. Alithea, a scholar who has dedicated her life to learning the many ways that humans tell stories, presents herself as having a wholly contented life, but as the Djinn shares his story we see through Alithea’s guise. Deep beneath her facade lie the broken pieces of lifetimes missed and squandered. Obviously, the best way to make a story of fantastical scale find a home in its audience you have to appeal to common sensibilities, and in today’s world of chaos and duplicity, seeing the make believe “I’m alright, really,” of someone be taken apart is deeply cathartic, if not also a hair mortifying. In the last two years everyone I know has had to put on a mask of sorts in an attempt to convince those around them that the reflexive “doing good” that follows the common small talk of “how are you” is even remotely true. Three Thousand Years of Longing confronts this with a scalpel. Dicing through Alithea’s defenses and the Djinn’s vulnerability to then reconstruct the two beings together in a tale of love and intimate friendship.
There are complaints to be had that perhaps the first two acts are far stronger than the final act. Alithea does eventually make her wishes, but the second and third wishes feel a little rushed and, as a result, seem to lack the genuine spirit required for wishes to be granted. But given the few quiet moments during the credits to process what happened in those last thirty minutes, I caught myself realizing that in love and relationships, our deepest desires are rarely dictated with patience. It’s so rare to be able to adequately find the words to express ourselves, and as a result the truest utterances of love and desire trend towards messy and unkempt stumbling of the heart. I think this film captures this with alarming accuracy. Because of course your “heart’s desire” for most would appear selfish and self-gratifying. Here it is not. We have grown to know these two characters as the film has progressed. So when Alithea utters her last two wishes, the fact that they are so simple and selfless and pure can come across initially as disingenuous. That is, until you recall the Djinn’s conditions. He cannot grant wishes unless they are truly the desires of his current master’s heart.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is a touching and trippy foray into the desires of the heart and the messiness of love and its many faces over time. I absolutely adored it. An experience that I caught myself, in those quiet moments, thinking this is an absolute treat. George Miller is a brave soul, taking on this subject material and remaining so steadfast to the message sitting front and center. When you go see this movie, prepare yourself for something kind, and honest, and comforting, and terrifying, and for those reasons all the more important to experience. I found myself longing to be in that place a moment longer. If I could steal just a few more minutes. A feeling not nearly as common as I would hope. I luxuriated in that essence here.
~Caleb