Seeking out the
5000 greatest films
in a century of cinema
Three Thousand Years of Longing
Directed by
George Miller
Produced by George Miller and Doug Mitchell
Screenplay by George Miller and Augusta Gore Based on the short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" by A. S. Byatt
Produced by George Miller and Doug Mitchell
Screenplay by George Miller and Augusta Gore Based on the short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" by A. S. Byatt
With:
Tilda Swinton, and Idris Elba
Cinematography:
John Seale
Editing: Margaret Sixel
Music: Junkie XL
Editing: Margaret Sixel
Music: Junkie XL
Runtime:
108 min
Release Date: 26 August 2022
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Color: Color
Release Date: 26 August 2022
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Color: Color
It's always interesting to see what George Miller will do next. The 77-year-old Australian creator of the Mad Max pictures is not exactly a prolific filmmaker—he's directed twelve features since the first Mad Max in 1979, ranging from Lorenzo's Oil to Babe, Pig in the City to the animated Happy Feet movies—so it's always fascinating to see what strikes his fancy. His latest, co-written with his daughter, is a loose adaptation of A. S. Byatt's 1994 short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye." Tilda Swinton stars as a contented, childless, middle-aged literary scholar who travels to Istanbul for a conference and accidentally rubs a lamp that produces a Djinn (charmingly played by Idris Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. Since the unsentimental narratologist is well versed in the typically negative outcomes of taking a Djinn up on this offer, this encounter ends up far more chatty than any of the Djinn's prior relationships with mortal women over the course of millennia.
The film, which bounces back and forth from the present-day hotel room conversation to the fantastic tales the Djinn recounts, feels like the COVID project of a man who lives for staging Mad Max-style car chases—though, apparently, the project has been in the works since well before the pandemic. Unlike so many movies that would use the "Scheherazade must tell tales" storyline as just a framing device for the more compelling and cinematic tales that get told, the rather flatly shot hotel room conversations between the two main stars are where the real juice of the movie lies. The ornate depictions of the Djinn's history are serviceable but not especially impressive. Since they are merely visualizations of his narration we never become invested in any of the characters we meet in these "flashbacks" the way we are with Elba's need to tell the tales and Swinton's reactions to them. That is perhaps as it should be, but since the stories within the story take up a great deal of screen time I wish they didn't come off so artificial and thin. What holds our interest is Elba's melodious voice narrating the tales, not the visual depictions of what he's saying.
As they did with their brilliant Mad Max: Fury Road, Miller and cinematographer John Seale (who came out of retirement again for this picture) got too carried away digitally coloring the images in post-production. It looks like they are overcompensating because these images are merely in service to something greater. There is also a reliance on subpar CGI, in both the tales and the contemporary sections, that looks cheap and often feels extraneous. How much more captivating might this picture have been if everything magical depicted on screen looked timeless rather than like something invented for Terminator 2?
Twitter Capsule:
The film, which bounces back and forth from the present-day hotel room conversation to the fantastic tales the Djinn recounts, feels like the COVID project of a man who lives for staging Mad Max-style car chases—though, apparently, the project has been in the works since well before the pandemic. Unlike so many movies that would use the "Scheherazade must tell tales" storyline as just a framing device for the more compelling and cinematic tales that get told, the rather flatly shot hotel room conversations between the two main stars are where the real juice of the movie lies. The ornate depictions of the Djinn's history are serviceable but not especially impressive. Since they are merely visualizations of his narration we never become invested in any of the characters we meet in these "flashbacks" the way we are with Elba's need to tell the tales and Swinton's reactions to them. That is perhaps as it should be, but since the stories within the story take up a great deal of screen time I wish they didn't come off so artificial and thin. What holds our interest is Elba's melodious voice narrating the tales, not the visual depictions of what he's saying.
As they did with their brilliant Mad Max: Fury Road, Miller and cinematographer John Seale (who came out of retirement again for this picture) got too carried away digitally coloring the images in post-production. It looks like they are overcompensating because these images are merely in service to something greater. There is also a reliance on subpar CGI, in both the tales and the contemporary sections, that looks cheap and often feels extraneous. How much more captivating might this picture have been if everything magical depicted on screen looked timeless rather than like something invented for Terminator 2?
Twitter Capsule:
Feels like the COVID project of the man who created Mad Max (which isn't a knock), but the absorbing tension Miller plays with by pitting logic and pragmatism against enchantment and romance comes out feeling a little less magical than I'd wish for.