Movie Review: Three Thousand Years of Longing
Written by Grady Fiorio Original Publishing Date: September 7th, 2022 Rating 4.5/5
How can it be a mistake to love someone entirely?
Thousand Years of Longing
Director George Miller Runtime 1 Hr 48 Min Format Digital (DCP) Release Date 2022
"How can it be a mistake to love someone entirely?" This was the moment that broke me. Very rarely do I cry during a movie, but that line sent a slow stream of tears running down my face. How, or rather why does wholehearted love almost always end in sadness? Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people, broken hearts. Love often feels more like a punishment rather than a blessing. A carnal desire that can only be granted when two hearts are perfectly in tune, like a radio wave to an antenna. But this is one signal that for many, is hard to find. In that moment I sat in the theater and thought about my own longings. The people, the places, the times. All long past like a faded memory, but still solid enough to grasp in my mind. Maybe not all is lost. Leading up to this moment in the film Idris Elba's character The Djinn, a genie, recounts three thousand years of solitude and lost love. Where most wish-granting stories end as cautionary tales for those who wish, these stories ironically end with the genie never capturing his own desire. Always just one misstep away from the piece that will complete him.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is the newest film from mind-melting Mad Max director, George Miller. The film follows Alithea, a lonely scholar on a work trip in Instanbul who is confronted by a Djinn that will grant her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. However, Alithea in her scholarly nature knows that stories of genies rarely end positively. The Djinn and Alithea sit in her hotel room as he tries to convince her to wish as he recounts 3000 years of tales of his misfortune, so he can finally be granted his freedom. Taking many of the production lessons learned from Mad Max Fury Road, Miller creates his most mystical film yet. Serving as an anthology enchanted with stories of love, hope, and despair, Three Thousand Years of Longing is a film I will not be forgetting anytime soon.
At its core, Three Thousand Years is a film about desire and longing. For most of us, it boils down to one simple desire. This explores that deep carnal desire to be loved. Loneliness is a cruel mistress and three thousand years trapped inside of a small circular cell only accentuates that fact, but nothing can ever take away the drive to be loved by another. Even year after year of isolation, the soul will search for another heart to conjoin. Without it, we lose ourselves. Through separate stories of wishes gone awry, we not only learn about the carnal desires of man but the wish granter himself, the Djinn. It's an interesting perspective that we don't often see in stories of genies but it helps enlighten us on what makes people act the way we do. Deep down inside all of us, there is a desire, a longing, that we want more than anything else, and with the right bend and twist it can cause us to do both great and awful things. I found the film very resonant in my own life. Hindsight is 20/20 and I can often look back and see how my own desires got in the way of my own progress. I'm not a spiritual man but I do believe things happen for a reason, and there are times when I can look back and be glad life didn't give me what I wanted.
One of the hardest lessons life teaches us is that love burns. Love burns just as much as it heals. Without it, we are doomed to loneliness. With it, we are doomed to longing. It's the joy of acceptance from others and it's the grief when life robs us blind and takes it all away when we least expect it. The hope of satisfaction is what strings us along. It's the same hope that kept the Djinn going for 3000 years, because he believed that love was possible. Alithea is put through a similar test of faith as she has to define her own desire. For so long she has tricked herself into believing that she was content with life even though in her heart she knows a piece is missing. Just like our cast of characters, if were are going to get anywhere, it's with faith, faith in life, faith in ourselves, and faith in love. The hardest kind of faith to have, but against all odds, we have it anyways. If I sit here and believe only in the futility of love, then I believe only in the futility of life, and if I believe only in the futility of life then what is the point? A fatalist mentality is one hell of an anchor, but I refuse to stop swimming. I will not drown. Sometimes my heart breaks and it bleeds to the ground, but I take the stitches and I grab the mop.
Three Thousand Years is a beautiful film. Beautiful in every sense of the word. Miller takes many of his production ideals from Fury Road and applies them in new and unique ways in this mystical roller coaster ride. Oscar-winning cinematographer John Seale comes out of retirement once again to join forces with Miller, and boy is it a treat. The cinematography on screen is stunning and the sets are astounding. Miller's colorist absolutely deserves a round of applause as Miller proves once again that he knows what he's doing when it comes to color pallets. The color pallet of the film not only accentuates the amazing work of the production design team but also the vibrant storytelling. The visual effects on hand are also stellar. Finding the perfect mix of stylization and realism, the visual effects both practical and digital blend smoothly in what is already a stunning piece of eye candy. The editing is electric, with a constant vibe of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It grabs you by the throat and takes you along for the ride, and for the most part, it never lets up. Tom Holkenborg's score eloquently matches the rapidly shifting tempo of the film. Electric guitar hypes the excitement of the film's more intense scenes while a mellow choir and set of strings are used for the more emotional moments. Through his writing and direction, Miller isn't afraid to be funny, depressing, thrilling, self-serious, and insightful. It's like a Rolodex of emotions that's in a constant spin, and weirdly enough it works. Performances from the ensemble do well to serve the story without one ever overshadowing another. Miller knows how to squeeze every drop of emotion from his cast and it shows. His talent and understanding of the craft is truly one of a kind.
While Miller keeps the rock and roll momentum through most of the film, it does start to lose its focus near the end. Without going into spoilers, the film breaks away from the flashback storytelling formula of the story and takes us out of the hotel room and back into the daily life of Athelia. These last 15 minutes of the movie are where it gets a bit messy. Without the fantastical stories that gave life to the rest of the film, the narrative seems flat in comparison. The conclusion started to feel like it was going in a direction that was inauthentic to what the characters had been building up to. Watching this in the theater, I started to get frustrated. "Why are you doing this? This doesn't feel right." Did Miller just not understand these characters? Was this movie I was falling in love with just make a harsh left turn into stupidity? No, Miller deserves more credit than that. The beauty is that it's intentional, it just takes a moment to reveal itself. The characters think they've learned their lesson. They think they've found the key, but in reality, they needed to experience some of the messiness of life before coming to their final epiphany. Within the last couple of minutes, Miller brings the story full circle and the ending clicks. In the moment it was frustrating and confusing, but by the end, I realized it was all part of the plan. a little bit like life I guess.
In a certain regard, I can't help but compare Three Thousand Years to my previous review of the film Arabian Nights (Which I will shamelessly plug here). Both are mystical anthologies of the middle east, tell stories of the past and the paradoxes of love. I think it serves as a nice companion piece to Three Thousand Years, which feels like an updated rock n roll version of Arabian Nights. If you plan on watching one of these films I also recommend watching the other. They definitely have different tones and sensibility, but I feel they complement each other well in their own unique ways.
While its ending can feel slightly disjointed, Three Thousand Years of Longing is another marvel from the mind of George Miller. Through exceptional writing and luscious production design, Miller has created one of the few films that is as fun and exciting as it is thought-provoking. Rarely does a film leave me this speechless and teary-eyed. Beautiful in every sense of the word, I can't help but feel like this touched my heart in a way that few films do. In less than two hours I considered my whole perspective on faith, love, and the joyous pain of life. As the film's final minutes began to lapse and I watched those characters walk away, once more I cried. For as much as I don't understand life, I try to have a little bit of faith that life understands me.
