Three Thousand Years Of Longing

Language : English
Starring: Idris Elba, Tilda Swintob
Directed by: George Miller
Produced by: George Miller, Doug Mitchell
Music by: Tom Holken burg
Cinematography :John Seale
Edited by :Margaret Sixel

Three Thousand Years of Longing is a 2022 fantasy romantic drama film directed by George Miller and starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Miller wrote the screenplay with Augusta Gore, adapting the 1994 short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” by A. S. Byatt. Elba stars as a djinn who is freed by a professor (Swinton) and recounts his life to her.

What works

Three thousand years longing is to a great extent an omnibus of the stories that Djinn, as the genie is called, tells about himself, at Alithea’s demand — she being an understudy of such stories, all things considered. The typical features of a genie story are here: the three wishes, the genie’s urgency for his own opportunity, the heavenly wizardry acts that make his own everlasting imprisonment, in a palm-sized bottle no less, so unexpected.

Miller dramatises those stories in vibrant flashbacks adorned with ornate visual effects; the results can be garish at times, but they can also be genuinely entrancing. The Djinn’s stories, at their best, have the feel of a great page-turner. However, as the possibility of Alithea and the Djinn falling in love is raised, the film loses its impact. Swinton and Elba are both excellent and have a sweet, touching chemistry, but they never create a bond that feels passionate enough to transcend time and space.

In the final act, the film tosses out some intriguing ideas, such as how a Djinn might feel obsolete in a world where technology has become its own modern-day magic.

What not works

The lack of momentum worsens in the final act, which takes place in London. The film repeatedly fades to black and then restarts, as if Miller couldn’t decide how to end it. Whatever Mad Max uses to power his vehicles, Three Thousand Years of Longing could have used some of it.
The fundamental issue, however, is that the djinn’s anecdotes aren’t enthralling enough. They’re full of wonderful details, like a magical musical instrument that plays itself, but none of them have compelling characters or a satisfying pay-off. It’s an odd flaw for a film that is so imaginative in so many ways, but that’s all it comes down to.If a screenplay is going to be fixated on the history and purpose of storytelling, the stories within it have to be better.

Bottomline

Disappointment, as a Miller directorial!!