Three Thousand Years of Longing

Three Thousand Years of Longing

A lonely and bitter British woman discovers an ancient bottle while on a trip to Istanbul and unleashes a djinn who offers her three wishes. Filled with apathy, she is unable to come up with one until his stories spark in her a desire to be loved.

  • Released: 2022-08-24
  • Runtime: 108 minutes
  • Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
  • Stars: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba, Kaan Guldur, Ece Yüksel, Zerrin Tekindor, Erdil Yaşaroğlu, David Collins, Alyla Browne, Nicola Mouawad, Angie Tricker, Hayley Gia Hughes, Jason Jago, Seyithan Özdemir, Burcu Gölgedar, Berk Ozturk, Ogulcan Arman Uslu, Pia Thunderbolt, Matteo Bocelli, Lachy Hulme, Megan Gale, Jack Braddy, Aamito Lagum, Aiden Mckenzie, Aska Karem, Shakriya Tarinyawat, Hugo Vella, John Puckeridge-Webb, Anna Adams, James Dobbins Jones, Tendai Dzwairo, Randolph Fields, Amelia Patomaki, Sarah Houbolt, Callum Moran, Shane Miller, David Paulsen, Tahlia Crinis, Melissa Jaffer, Feride Eralp, Georgiou Thomas, Arshia Dehghani, Talia Tulin Sert, Melissa Kahraman, Nathan Susskind, Ronny Mouawad, Michelotti Edoardo, Prakash Paul, Sabrina Elba, Olivia Porter, Burwaiss Ahmed, Quaden Bayles, Botan Ozer
  • Director: George Miller
 Comments
  • outrunkid - 27 May 2024
    A wonderful story that only cinema can do true justice to
    The first ten minutes of this film I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy it. It seemed slightly silly and a little too oddball to be something which would naturally interest me.

    However, I soon became swept up in just what this film is - a modern day fairy tale. Even though the stories being told throughout this film don't really relate to the 'plot' of the film, I was literally enthralled. I've never seen a film like this before. It is unique in it's narrative because in a genius way it manages to tell several stories linked by only a single thread across thousands of years, yet never once did I feel that the story, theme or narrative lost it's way.

    I thought it was a marvellous piece of storytelling. This is, I think by design, the equivalent of a fable told around a fire by the nomads of the desert - a story that could reverberate across the centuries, passed down until it was finally caught by George Miller who happened to have two great actors and a camera at his disposal the moment it came into his view. Three Thousand Years of Longing took me on a journey that felt rich, detailed, humorous, evil and disastrous.

    The visual design of the film is gorgeous. You can very easily imagine the visual design and aesthetic of the film going wrong but it doesn't because it's filmmaking at it's finest. George Miller has told great visual stories with the Mad Max films but here it's the next level for him - he made sure that it all came together so well.

    Thoroughly impressed. Wonderful film, great watch. The only reason it loses a star for me is because the ending seemed a little weak and rushed in my opinion.
  • glenaobrien - 19 February 2024
    Genie in a bottle fairy tale
    I was not inclined to watch this based on the trailer but my son, Jesse O'Brien, director of Arrowhead (2016) and Two Heads Creek (2019) has a credit as a Visual Effects Coordinator so I had to watch. Also George Miller is directing so it can't be too bad, right? It's the well-known story of the genie in the bottle (Idris Elba) granting three wishes (to narratologist Alithea Binnie, played by Tilda Swinton).

    Essentially a series of interconnected fairy tales, it works pretty well as each story takes place in different historical periods including King Solomon's love affair with the Queen of Sheba. What didn't work for me was when it turned into a love affair between the genie and the academic. They didn't have a lot of chemistry and the drama of their affair just fizzled out without being able to match the narrative power of the historical pieces. But you can bet I paused on the credit sequence and took a photo of my son's name. However I have maintained objectivity and avoided a five star rating just for his sake.
  • tarekali-19909 - 24 October 2023
    A sweeping epic that addresses a timelessly appealing notion, beings of smokeless fire endowed with tremendous powers by the Creator, but subject to the same laws of destiny a
    A sweeping epic that addresses a timelessly appealing notion, beings of smokeless fire endowed with tremendous powers by the Creator, but subject to the same laws of destiny and helplessness as mere mortals.

    The rendition of ancient lands and giants of history is breathtaking, especially the treatment of Queen Sheba and later the Ottoman Sultans. The attention to detail and special effects are noteworthy. The rendition of the great sultans Suleiman and Murad are satisfying and mirror history.

    The debate between Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba is really the spine and heart of the movie and is a delight to witness. Two great minds sparring away, seeking to best each other like a game of mental and verbal chess played with stories as pieces on the board.

    Of course, we are intrigued by the supernatural and unseen, and of course, we are tempted to harness incredible powers to our selfish ends, but there is always a terrible price to pay. My only, ahem, wish is that the epic historical themes ran through the entire movie and that there was less mediocrity in the last act.
  • rozanskijanek - 12 December 2022
    Very unique, but...
    This movie is... Different. Very different. Probably not like anything you have ever seen. Why? Because of the type of its story, but also because of the way it coexists with the whole mystic/supernatural themes, that are crucial in here.

    If you cut all the "weird" things out from here, you basically get a story about 2 people, lonely man and lonely woman, who meet in some strange conditions, start talking, getting to know each other and then realize their goals are very similar and they might be able to accomplish them together. This sounds interesting, right?

    And it definitely is. So, where's the problem? There are a few of them.

    The biggest problem of this movie is its conclusion. I mean... For me, as someone with cold head, it doesn't really make sense that our characters decide to do what they decide to do. It feels so unnatural for them and it's very easy to predict, it's not gonna work. And I know they are both desperate, but it's still not enough for me to make such decision. Finally it ends exactly the way I expected... The second real problem here is the fact, that we know basically nothing about the character played by Tilda Swinton. All the stories in this movie are told by Idris Elba's character. I get the fact, that because of his mystic origin he might be seen as more interesting, but we have to know something more about one of the main characters, if we know SO MUCH about the other main character, come on...

    Overally, I would say this movie was definitely interesting, but after some time it became very predictable and it disappointed me deeply. Still, it wasn't bad though.
  • catschasemice9594 - 25 November 2022
    Does Justice to Byatt
    A S Byatt is one of my most favored modern authors. She writes beautiful fiction that often uses framing to tell the stories of her characters. She moves her narrative through time giving the reader insight into the humanness of the folks in her tales. This isn't easy to carry into film. The movie version of Possession was an atrocity. Miller has done an amazing job of taking Byatt's Djinn story and arranging it in 3000 Years of Longing. I think this is my year's choice for best movie. It isn't for everyone. Best to avoid if you want a super hero experience. And I'd watch Tilda Swinton play. Ben Franklin if that show ever got made.
  • goshamorrell - 14 November 2022
    George Miller has a mind that no one else has and makes art
    "Three Thousand Years of Longing," the new film directed by the protean "Mad Max: Fury Road" creator George Miller, is very much a battleground. And very much about the emotion tagged in the title. In the case of Alithea, the academic played with traits both prim and feisty by Tilda Swinton, the longing is one she denies. Introducing herself in voiceover as a "narratologist," that is, a studier of stories, she cherishes her solitary self-sufficiency. Arriving in a storybook-bright Istanbul for a conference, she's put up in the Agatha Christie room of the Pera Palace Hotel. "She wrote Death on the Nile here," Alithea is told. The movie will be about emotion, but also about storytelling and stories. As for those wishes: not so fast. As a narratologist, Alithea knows that a djinn is one gift horse worth looking in the mouth. The wish-fulfillment narratives involving genies famously never work out-either due to the stupidity/venality of the wisher or, more pertinent to Alithea, the fact that genies are notorious tricksters. One may also be unsettled that the movie arguably partakes of what the scholar Edward Said called "orientalism." Western culture taking Eastern culture and molding it to its own ends, to put it one way. In many respects Miller shows scrupulousness. The ancient world depicted here is not whitewashed in the casting department (Lagum, who plays Sheba, is Ugandan, and won the first season of "Africa's Next Top Model"). But just the idea of a Black Djinn and a white Englishwoman in a battle of wits over narratives real and fictional is apt to strike a dissonant chord with some. Is Miller exercising his freedom as a creative artist or taking undue license? I believe the former. And I believe that the compassion and imaginative energy he brings to the project (this hardly looks like the work of a director who's almost 80) justifies his choices, if indeed any justification were really necessary.

    As the tales unfold, Alithea, while never entirely letting down her guard, comes to understand that the lack of love in her life is more upsetting than she's been willing to admit to herself.