Three Thousand Years Of Longing (2022) I wasn't even halfway through this film when I realized that by the time it finished, I'd be among the few who'd enjoyed it and would stand very much alone in defending it in a review.....
I also knew that I'd join a very small group of people who could actually claim they watched it.....
How come? My take on why it sank without a trace..... I think the previous towering filmography of its director George Miller led to the wrong expectations.....and the movie's failure to find even a scant audience.
To cinema lovers, Miller's name conjured up instant visions of fabulously spectacular action sequences coupled with over the top characters, each role performed by actors pitching themselves into a state of hysteria to match the film around them.....
As in, ...."Holy crap! The 'Mad Max' guy makin' a movie about a Genie from the a lamp! It's gotta be...like, like....."Aladdin Hits Fury Road!"
Spoiler alert for all you Mad Max adrenalin junkies: this movie is as far from 'Aladdin Hits Fury Road' as we all are from the dark side of the moon......
True, it features spectacularly designed special effects sequences and some breathtaking visual storytelling that's a gaudy banquet for your eyes.
But for once, Miller uses his formidable cinematic gifts in service of a story about how overpowering loneliness is healed by love, you're seduced and lost inside in this bittersweet tale that makes you ache in sympathy for its star-crossed players.
Dr. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) leads a solitary life as a curator and anthropologist of civilization's fables, myths and legendary stories.....fiction that began as a way to explain the natural world around us until the steady progress of science dispelled the fantasy with cold, hard truths.
Nobody, however, broke this news to the giant magical Djinn (Idris Elba) that Alithea unleashed from an antique bottle she bought at an Istanbul shop. Knowing the world's myths all too well the skeptical, hard-shelled Alithea is wary and distrustful of the Djinn's traditional offer of three wishes.
In all the tales of innocents offered three wishes by all-powerful supernatural entities, things always go terribly awry for the wishmakers.......as their requests, invariably taken all too literally, lead to sad and terrible consequences for them.
But the emotionally agonized Djinn desperately needs her wishes made and brought to life or he faces thousands more years of an ordained confinement to non-existence. To prove his point he regales her with his three previous encounters that led to the downfall of both himself and those who unwisely chose to take advantage of his infinite powers.......with these ancient tales each stunningly brought to life by the patented George Miller cinematic magic we all know and love.
Alithea absorbs these stories, the kind of tales she's spent a lonely lifetime devoted to, filled with violence, lust, and even a doomed tender romance that affected the Djinn himself. The fables finally lead her to make the most startling wish request the Djinn ever faced.......forcing the film's audience to realize what this movie was about all along. (Which, at his point, you'll hear no more from me....)
....other than to tell you it turns out as something far, far superior to 'Aladdin Hits Fury Road'.....and well worth anyone's time.
Call me crazy, call me odd, call me whatever you want, but I savored every minute of "Three Thousand Years...", even if almost nobody else did......and BQ counts it as one of the best, most surprising movie experiences this blog's encountered in 2022. Elba, Swinton and George Miller make a dream team to cast a spell on you...... And I'm wishing it a most magical 4 stars (****)
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