“There is no story about wishing that is not a cautionary tale.”
Why is that? In the long tradition of fairy tales of magical wishes, why are so many only concerned with where it goes wrong? Can’t a wish, a heart’s desire even, be something without drastic moral consequence? It is an inherently vain thought experiment, the notion that one’s greatest wish can come true –and maybe that is why it is so often twisted into a curse in our fictions: to discourage the fantasy. But there’s nothing wrong with a little fantasy. The story of the wisher who does not receive some cosmic punishment or judgement –that is a rare and precious thing.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is the story of Alithea Binnie and the Djinn who grants her three wishes, and it is not that. It is just as much defined by ramifications and misfortune as any of its referenced antecedents. But not in the direction so common of these tales and in a way that openly strives for that optimist outcome; that envisions validity to the fantasy. And it’s not just Alithea who has three chances for this.
George Miller’s epic magical romance is without doubt the most visually vivacious movie of the year, even edging out the madness of Everything Everywhere All at Once (though it’s perhaps not as creative) or the style of fellow Aussie Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. A certain relief for his first movie in seven years, following up his mammoth career-defining Mad Max: Fury Road. Three Thousand Years of Longing is actually grander in scope, even as much of it technically takes place in a hotel room in Istanbul. The stories that come to life within that space span centuries upon centuries and are infused with magic and chaos and just a whole host of wild things that should come as no surprise, again given this filmmakers’ prior work. But the soul there, that wasn’t suggested by its’ marketing, is a surprise, enriching the film in ways varied and unexpected.
It certainly wasn’t what I was anticipating, but once I figured out the direction the movie was headed in, I was more than willing to go along with it. The plot simply follows Alithea, played by Tilda Swinton who, per usual is as much magnetic as she is enigmatic -a literary scholar, lonely by all account but for her own admission, speaking at a seminar in Turkey. In a local market she buys an antique bottle that when she brings home to her hotel room turns out to be the vessel for an ancient Djinn, played Idris Elba -who has been on and off trapped in it for three thousand years. She is granted three wishes, but before making them engages the Djinn in speculation and a slight suspicion, and he proceeds to relate his history in three stories of people to whom he was bound.
The premise is based off a short story by A.S. Byatt, but doesn’t follow as episodic a structure as might be supposed. Each story is irrevocably connected, a series of linked parables that inform the present narrative and paint a holistic picture of both the Djinn and his understanding of humanity. Patterns of feelings and actions recur, lusts and passions, and above all else of course, longing. Not just in the Djinn, who experiences it most palpably, but of the rulers, concubines, travelers whom he observes or who directly control his fate. He can satiate that longing for some, but it is imperfect, and as tradition goes, typically lead to bitter ends.
Yet it is tragic, because there is no judgement on the nature of the desires themselves -for anyone. Even in such little time, Miller is able to relate the sheer depths of these passions for love, acceptance, or knowledge. And particularly he does well with the Djinn, who lost his beloved Queen of Sheba (a stunning Aamito Lagum), a half-Djinn herself, when her new lover King Solomon imprisoned him in the bottle that by chance wound up buried in the Mediterranean for more than a millennium. He finds love again much later, but it too ends in despair, though of a very different kind. One of the miracles of the movie is its’ ability to evoke such timeless fancy to its’ mythological tales whilst rendering them immediate in their sense of newness and exploration. The movie is in a manner modeled on the 1001 Arabian Nights; the presentation complete with framing device is a rather obvious allusion, but for the classical themes that pop up the stories as told from the Djinn’s point of view are unmistakably fresh.
And that’s the Miller touch right there, whose vision is the right amalgam of rich and weird –much like Fury Road. And there are chapters where that intensity of weirdness will be too much for some audiences –such as one character, a sultan, who creates a harem of obese women. This is a film that asks its audience to go down some pretty bizarre avenues with it, some of which openly defy logical assessment (as well they should, this is a fantasy); but it’s a relatively easy and smooth bridge to cross. Because Miller is as sincere as he is subversive and that may be the key to the movies’ power. This is apparent even in just the aspect of his style, which is so unrepentantly bold in colour, lighting, technical versatility, and pace. There are several scenes where the imagery just leaves you in awe, and the special effects artists deserve ample credit, given most of these are digitally rendered, but they understand how to marry those to traditional cinematic techniques. I think of the Djinn’s prologue especially, and the gorgeous contrasts of radiant light on the dark skin textures of both the Djinn and Sheba, bathing the whole sequence in an erotic glow.
Indeed, its’ reflective of a highly romantic mood to the piece that is as tantalizing as it is overwhelming. It’s been a while since a filmmaker has been allowed to go this hard with a love story –and especially one more to do with the broad sensation of love than any particulars of a relationship. Sweeping romances have gone out of fashion in the advent of realism, but it’s good to see Miller invested in their value, as he essentially crafts the Djinn’s arc as about chasing love through the ages and Alithea’s about finding the capacity to love within herself –someone so isolated and lonesome her only reprieve is in the joy she finds in stories, their histories and meanings. The connection formed through this between her and the Djinn is the crux of their own plot, and the films’ thesis.
Stories can be intoxicating, their power to move incomparable. It is the effect that the whole of the Djinn’s story has on Alithea that propels her wish once she decides on it. And unlike in so many fables, it is an inherently selfless wish –yet it too comes with its complexities. Both Alithea and the Djinn suffer for their longing, the latter for a piece of what was lost, the former for what was never truly felt. But they are each to learn that it cannot be satiated alone –the love they are after must be mutual and unabiding. And we see in other corners of the movie this idea represented: the Ottoman girl Gulten (Ece Yüksel) who wishes for the love of Prince Mustafa (Matteo Bocelli), and becomes prideful of it and dependent on it until the end. Hers is the cautionary tale the Djinn fails to learn from in his own amour with the intelligent Zefir (Burcu Gölgedar) centuries later, and that Alithea finally repeats with the Djinn himself. Yet Alithea did not know her hearts’ desire, which her predecessors claimed to have -she came to it only through personal persuasion. Perhaps that is why she is best positioned to understand the ultimate emptiness of wishes –that of course and her vast literary credentials.
I said before that this movie longs to not be a cautionary tale, as Alithea is so certain for so long it must be. Maybe the truth is in fact that she is right: wishing tales cannot honestly be bereft of moral warning. But Miller leaves us with a final scene, one that like that coda to The Shawshank Redemption provides a punctuation of earnest catharsis, diminishing any pessimism you may have been left with. It flips the script and gets away with it impeccably. Three Thousand Years of Longing is worth something in the end.
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