"3,000 Years of Longing" is pretty to look at, and it features Idris Elba, a very charismatic star, but it misses the mark thanks to a weak script.
Warning this review will reveal the end of the movie.
Tilda Swinton is Alithea Binnie, a spinsterish scholar who studies narratives. She was married once, briefly, and was left by her husband. She is alone without family. You get the impression that she is mostly content that way. When a friend touches her in a friendly way, she smacks him. Swinton plays Alithea as a cold woman, and that's not a bad thing. Some people are just not people-people. They value their solitude and find human interaction awkward and draining. They'd much rather devote their time to their books and maybe cats.
Alithea travels to Turkey for a conference. She buys a pretty bottle in a bazaar, takes it home, cleans it with her electric toothbrush, and out pops Djinn, played by Idris Elba. He offers her wishes. She is a scholar of stories and she knows that "wish" stories are always cautionary tales. Wishes often end badly. She makes Elba tell her the story of his life. He complies. They, wearing hotel bathrobes, sit in the rather drab, and drably photographed, hotel room, as Elba tells his tales.
He was in love with The Queen of Sheba, who, he says, was beauty itself. That ended badly and he was thrown into the ocean. Later he served a girl in a harem. This story involves a fat prince who is locked in a fur-lined room with fat, naked women. These scenes were amusing. After that, he serves the third wife of an old man. She languishes in a tower, craving knowledge, knowledge he grants her.
These are all fun stories, and they are photographed very prettily. The style is orientalist. But for this viewer, and many others, these episodes never build to a propulsive plot for the movie itself. I wish George Miller, while saluting stories, had written a good story. Remember, the legendary Scheherazade, who gave us 1001 Nights of stories, didn't just tell one story after another; rather, she existed within a longer story, the story of her trying to save her own life from a king who killed his wives.
I wish the stories Djinn told related to the larger movie's story, that of Alithea falling for Djinn and wanting his love. She finally makes her wish, that is, she wants Djinn's love. They travel together to England. He doesn't do well there. Alithea releases him from his love because she realizes it's not really love if you have to demand it. They remain friends and get together every now and then.
I like Tilda Swinton, but I think she's the wrong actress for this story. I could never believe that Prof. Binnie would want anyone as hot blooded as Djinn in her life. I could see her with a Henry Higgins Rex Harrison type, just as scholarly and cold as she is.
My dream actress for the Alithea Binnie role would have been Deborah Kerr, who was expert at playing women who were very prim and proper until they met the right man, and then turned into warm lava flows of passion.
I also did not think that the movie was making the statements it appeared to want to be making about love and about loneliness and also about the price a woman pays for being a scholar.
PS: The woke will pillory this movie for its orientalism and exoticism. In fact its orientalism and exoticism are its major draws. In spite of the weak story, the scenes of the Djinn's tales are quite beautiful. See the film while you can, before it is banned.
Warning this review will reveal the end of the movie.
Tilda Swinton is Alithea Binnie, a spinsterish scholar who studies narratives. She was married once, briefly, and was left by her husband. She is alone without family. You get the impression that she is mostly content that way. When a friend touches her in a friendly way, she smacks him. Swinton plays Alithea as a cold woman, and that's not a bad thing. Some people are just not people-people. They value their solitude and find human interaction awkward and draining. They'd much rather devote their time to their books and maybe cats.
Alithea travels to Turkey for a conference. She buys a pretty bottle in a bazaar, takes it home, cleans it with her electric toothbrush, and out pops Djinn, played by Idris Elba. He offers her wishes. She is a scholar of stories and she knows that "wish" stories are always cautionary tales. Wishes often end badly. She makes Elba tell her the story of his life. He complies. They, wearing hotel bathrobes, sit in the rather drab, and drably photographed, hotel room, as Elba tells his tales.
He was in love with The Queen of Sheba, who, he says, was beauty itself. That ended badly and he was thrown into the ocean. Later he served a girl in a harem. This story involves a fat prince who is locked in a fur-lined room with fat, naked women. These scenes were amusing. After that, he serves the third wife of an old man. She languishes in a tower, craving knowledge, knowledge he grants her.
These are all fun stories, and they are photographed very prettily. The style is orientalist. But for this viewer, and many others, these episodes never build to a propulsive plot for the movie itself. I wish George Miller, while saluting stories, had written a good story. Remember, the legendary Scheherazade, who gave us 1001 Nights of stories, didn't just tell one story after another; rather, she existed within a longer story, the story of her trying to save her own life from a king who killed his wives.
I wish the stories Djinn told related to the larger movie's story, that of Alithea falling for Djinn and wanting his love. She finally makes her wish, that is, she wants Djinn's love. They travel together to England. He doesn't do well there. Alithea releases him from his love because she realizes it's not really love if you have to demand it. They remain friends and get together every now and then.
I like Tilda Swinton, but I think she's the wrong actress for this story. I could never believe that Prof. Binnie would want anyone as hot blooded as Djinn in her life. I could see her with a Henry Higgins Rex Harrison type, just as scholarly and cold as she is.
My dream actress for the Alithea Binnie role would have been Deborah Kerr, who was expert at playing women who were very prim and proper until they met the right man, and then turned into warm lava flows of passion.
I also did not think that the movie was making the statements it appeared to want to be making about love and about loneliness and also about the price a woman pays for being a scholar.
PS: The woke will pillory this movie for its orientalism and exoticism. In fact its orientalism and exoticism are its major draws. In spite of the weak story, the scenes of the Djinn's tales are quite beautiful. See the film while you can, before it is banned.