Three Thousand Years of Longing

"Three Thousand Years of Longing" is a culmination of stories leading up to the encounter between Idris Elba's "Djinn" and Tilda Swinton's "Alithea" that will enchant and enthrall those that wish to be enchanted and enthralled. It is certainly not a movie that I would just recommend to anyone. Rather, this film is one for an audience looking to pick out patterns and motifs that make up a three-thousand-year long story.

These musical motifs, visual patterns, color schemes, and recurring events are placed all throughout the film. Many are easy to pick out, many less so. In essence, this film is not unlike Wes Andersen's "The French Dispatch", in which many smaller stories constitute a whole. While there is certainly room to expand, this is an intriguingly crafted film (with an even more intriguing sound mix), that stayed with me long after I left the theater. If you wish to enter a world where history and legend collide, I would highly recommend this film.

Tilda Swinton is an academic who studies stories. She lives a fairly isolated existence ... by choice ... valuing her independence over close relationships. While at a conference in Istanbul, she buys a glass bottle as a souvenir and when she accidentally opens it in her hotel room, djinn Idris Elba emerges. Naturally, he tells her she has three wishes, but as she's an expert on stories, she's wary since all the stories she knows about wishing are cautionary tales. Since he needs her to make wishes to be free, Elba tells her stories about his past to explain how he ended up in the bottle and to build trust.

The advertising for this film is deceptive. The trailer and this poster try to convince you that you're getting some kind of magical George Miller action extravaganza along the lines of Mad max meets "Everything Everywhere All at Once". This is nothing like that film. It's a pretty stately paced film that mostly involves Swinton and Elba talking in a hotel room, with Elba's stories providing the magnificent visuals. But even these stories are pretty deliberately paced. It's a film about ideas, not action.

I really liked the ideas. It's about the role of stories in life and also about love and companionship. It's also about the idea of wishing for things and what we ultimately have the right to demand from other people. The pace lagged occasionally for me, but I'm very forgiving of a film this packed with ideas and ultimately so intriguingly open ended.

What would you do, if a Djinn appeared to you, gave three wishes at your leisure, would you use them for your pleasure, a lad in veritable full throttle, a genie conjured from a bottle, just be clear what you require, to satisfy, your heart's desires (and quench any sweltering fires that may also need dousing).

A tale of loneliness and solitude, of growing old and achievements, of what could have been and what might yet be, told through the furtive imagination of Alithea, with help from a mysterious spirit who she frees from a bottle during a stay in Istanbul.

Imagination doesn't disappear with age, and while this is not the greatest or the deepest film you'll see this year, it may still leave you juggling what three wishes you might make, and especially how to phrase them so they don't backfire.

It's pretty slow paced and isn't action packed at all which was what I expected heading in. I was excited to see it but it didn't seem to be as good from the people who watched it early which lowered my expectations.

The movie's all about story telling of a djinn's former lifetimes. It's definitely one of the more unique films released this year, it's filled with grand and vibrant visuals, it shows you his memories as they're narrated and the whole movie ekes magic because if it. As far as djinn stories go it's not as original but the way it's told makes it feel like something new, sets it apart from Disney's Aladdin.

In the second half of the movie it moves away from the magical ambience and becomes a romance between the two protagonists that have only loneliness in common. Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton gave great performances; however as the whole premise of the movie is storytelling, it does lack depth and emotional pull which could've elevated it from just a good movie to a great one. Because for something that only wants to tell stories, it's a little disappointing that the visuals were the most captivating thing about it. It also feels much longer than it is, I don't think it should have been paced quicker but they should have just given the audience some more depth or thrill.

It's a very zen movie, it doesn't flactuate, no highs and lows which makes it quite anticlimactic and movies like that are rarely memorable. It tells stories that happened over 3000 years, that's a lot to unpack in such a short time so it makes sense they couldn't unravel it all, but that unfortunately left me with the feeling it had so much more to offer. Little sparks of something special that never came to be.

I think its awesome how the ratings jumped up from a 5.9 to a 6.9 that's wonderful! Mainly about Tilda Swinton's character buying an antique to find out a Djinn is part of it, has wishes and numerous stories to tell that are fascinating, beautiful, bizarre, and intriguing. Idris Elba is brilliant in anything especially in The Wire that's irrelevant but easily his best role. I barely knew anything of this movie before seeing except that I love George Miller films he has made a lot of masterpieces 3000 thousand years of longing is defiantly excellent for it's uniqueness; I wouldn't say masterful but damn good and would highly recommend!