*Poof* a genie! What would your three wishes be? Mine change with every passing year. Sure, there was a time when I would have wished to be a world-class athlete, have wealth beyond my imagination, or to be loved universally by default. These desires now seem foolish and puerile. As does perpetual happiness. It’s great to have until you have nothing to compare it to. Happiness remains a comparative construct. Lately, my genie-inspired dreams have all centered around forbidden knowledge and social harmony. Alas, this is where the genie “gets ya.” Oh sure, you can know the future; are you sure you want to? Why, yes, you can have universal social harmony … so long as you suppress any person who doesn’t believe in such. Ask yourself if the Thanos method works.
Once upon a time, America “wished” for a black President to show herself that racism was a thing of the past. And she got not only a black President, but one of the greatest Presidents in history … and in the wake of President Obama, America proved herself to be exactly as racist as she initially feared, perhaps even worse than imagined. Here’s a question for you, my reading wisher: if you could subtract President Trump from history only by also subtracting President Obama from history, would you? That is such a tough call in my mind. But there’s little question that without President Obama there almost certainly is no President Trump.
Be careful what you wish for.
So many films are titled poorly, I wanted to pay special attention to one titled well. While Three Thousand Years of Longing is, essentially, a genie tale, one that involves magic lamps and wish fulfillments, the title is a much better descriptor than the basic plot. For Three Thousand Years of Longing isn’t about Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton), the woman who finds the lamp, as much as the Djinn with the, follow me here, Three Thousand Years of Longing. Alithea is just a conduit for the Djinn’s tale, which is on the epic side. It involves Sheba (yes, that Sheba) and imprisonment and empires and unrequited love. It’s a bit like The Count of Monte Cristo when you think about it.
The Djinn-excuse tale involves Alithea, a woman who just needs a cat to become a crazy cat lady. Alithea is a narratologist, i.e. someone who studies narrations, tales. This isn’t a real profession, of course. Nobody pays you to be a narratologist, whatever that is. And yet, Alithea is constantly continent –hopping in search of common narrative themes from diverse cultures. Again, who pays her to do this? Seriously, who?
Oh, and Alithea is a tad batty. She sees apparitions only visible to her. It’s hard to know what to make of the fact that her invisible childhood friend was actually visible to her. I took it to mean either of two things: 1) She’s more attuned to discover a bottled genie than her peers or 2) this whole movie is entirely a fabrication of an insane woman … which would adequately explain her profession … but not her wealth.
Long story short, the woman visits Istanbul, finds a bottle and before you know it, naked, dog-eared, enormous Idris Elba pops out and he just can’t wait to tell you what he’s been up to these past millennia. FWIW, Idris and Tilda spend over half the film in bathrobes while he narrates.
Now I know most viewers are gonna be impatient for the wishing part. This isn’t that kind of genie tale. Alithea doesn’t want
anything and both parties are fully aware that every version of the wish narrative is a cautionary tale. So instead we learn of how the Djinn got suckered into three different bottles over the years. You get the impression that the wishes are less an obligation and more a “thank you for getting me out of there!” The Djinn’s narrative is the proper path to follow. Alithea doesn’t even know what she desires until she hears his story (which sounds odd for somebody who studies narratives for her living), hence I’m happy with the tale as presented. It’s possible that after Memoria, I would be overjoyed at any Tilda Swinton film in which something happened. Regardless, I’ll back this one. Three Thousand Years of Longing is a moving, romantic tale about the things we wish for and the consequences of our wishes. The film happily challenges us and concludes with the idea that none of us is that different from either the Djinn or the “lucky” person that happens upon one.
I’m still waiting for the Idris Elba vehicle that headlines his biography. While Three Thousand Years of Longing beats the heck out of Beast, this still isn’t it. We all know this guy is a good actor; we all know he makes whatever he is in better than it would have been otherwise. Now we need the thing that’s gonna play in the background when he has his inevitable Oscar tribute. Otherwise, I see a Hedy Lamarr afterlife – respected only by those who cared and eventually, sadly, stuffed in a bottle and forgotten.
A spinster released a pent-up bottled Djinn
Who said, “this is where your wishes begin”
But the woman did waffle
And the Djinn concluded, “Awful.
Instead, you shall hear of my chagrin.”
Rated R, 108 Minutes
Director: George Miller
Writer: George Miller, Augusta Gore
Genre: Be careful what you don’t wish for
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Genies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Greedsters
