Review by Kevflix And Chill
Alithea (Swinton), a narratologist, comes across a Djinn or genie in a lamp (Elba), that can grant her three wishes. Once she does, Djinn can be released from his prison. In her vast studies of literature, Alithea is well versed in the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong and thus she intends to not use any of her wishes. Doing so would, however, effectively condemn Djinn for eternity so he proceeds to tell her the stories of his past in an effort to convince her to proclaim her hearts deepest desires.Genie’s stories span thousands of years and are told in vignettes with plenty of visual flair from George Miller. Elba and Swinton are never not fantastic Alithea and Djinn (lets call them Alidjinn) and as we dive into this lore I was completely engrossed. There’s a great irony here, however, in which a literal story about stories and storytelling, really fumbles the main narrative; and it won’t take a narratologist to see that. Would have loved to see more elements from Djinn’s stories payoff in Alithea’s. There is plenty of good elements, but as a whole (and particularly the third act) it really didn’t work for me. Add in that there’s quite a lot of nudity (sorry, not Idris—though he is shirtless for most of it), but it’s not a film anyone would want to show their kids.
Reviews
Rotten Tomatoes : 67%
IMDb : 6.4/10
Letterboxd : 3.3/5
I've been looking forward to 3000 years of longing for a little while now george miller brings visual flair to the storytelling in this but are visuals enough a lonely scholar on a trip to istanbul discovers ajin who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom tilda swinton and idris elbastar was swinton being a narratologist that's a person who studies stories and storytelling and then elba is arjin now after sweden's alithea buys a bottle in an istanbul bazaar she accidentally releases the chin who's been trapped inside now he offers her three wishes with a few quid pro quo's and addendums to be sure and then then a process tells her some magical tales about his life the visual aspect of this film is stunning and it's very creative now starting with elba's gin he's wispy around the edges as he materializes which then gives him a very ethereal presence and his legs are covered in this greenish blue scaly substance i mean it's almost skin like and the vibrancy i thought was awesome and it's accented by some deep red on the gin's palms and then he has these golden fingertips now when we're told the story of the gin's past the graphics are fantastical and even dreamlike in sequences there's a lot of symmetry in the framings too especially in sequences where the camera will either push in or pull out on a character which then intends to give us a sense of intimacy or connection with them now there are a lot of scenes where it's pretty obvious that the environments they're all shot on a green screen and it's not obvious in the fact that the actors just appear to be placed in front of something but really the entire thing has this quality to it that feels fake but it doesn't look cheap it's almost a bit like the battle scenes in the movie 300 where a lot of that is comic esque and then you know the contrast is increased the saturation is also dialed up which then creates some very stark colors and shadows this presentation also utilizes differing styles of graphics throughout there are sometimes title cards that appear on screen to clue us into what the next portion of the story is going to contain and then other times we see some 2d animation that's interspersed with our live action this looks pretty cool even though it's only used in one short sequence there are sometimes when the scenes feel more spectral and then the blurred and shimmery effect i think it looks good and it matches what we're told is happening in the scene but there are also times when this is repetitive which then takes away from the specialness of a sequence now as great as the visuals are through most of this another aspect that can be very engaging is the way our characters tell their stories a large portion of this movie is dialogue driven with the action being narrated to us by either alithea or the jinn now the cadence and the tone that they each use to speak are captivating and they enthralled me in their tales the dynamic between swinton and elba i think is also great to watch they each have a slight intensity to them but also then a loneliness and a sadness that emanates from them they're not overly demonstrative or showy in their actions but their words carry quiet passion and as intriguing as their stories are and even then the chemistry that's shared between the two along with the great visuals i struggled to find the overall production awesome the story starts off with a bit of an urgency to it and then as the movie goes along it loses its energy and momentum the narrative falls into the lull that our characters are also experiencing now while it's fine to see the characters indulge in some quiet inaction it's much less entertaining to have the presentation also feel like it's indulging in the inaction there are also some odd scene transitions that really did begin to bother me there would be extended fade to black sequences that were used to switch between the different scenes now these made the film either feel like a made for tv movie or just simply a very lazy way to resolve a scene either way it didn't work for me and as much as i tried to ignore it they did become a distraction because of how many times that particular technique was used now there are a couple of visuals at the beginning of the movie that also felt oddly placed and then i think were unaddressed aletheia sees some things that could be tied into other portions that are later on in the film but they really felt more unattached than anything there are a few times in this where the sound design was awesome utilizing the surround sound or just its full capability now there's a particular moment where voices are bouncing around to space and the audio then also bounces from the right and the left or really the right and the left giving the scene some great depth and breadth but there were also sometimes at least in my showing when the dialogue wasn't as clear as it could have been i was struggling to hear some portions especially as the characters were talking amongst each other and so then i was kind of having to guess at what was being said because it was pretty audible and unintelligible now i really wanted to like this more it starts off strong but then it peters out as we enter the final act losing so much of the intrigue in the interest it's not to say that the overall story itself isn't good because i thought it was creatively told and executed but by the end i was just present not actively engaged in what was transpiring so overall three thousand years of longing excels in its visuals and creativity but it falters when it comes to fully executing an engaging watching experience the chemistry between swinton and elba is great but it's also restraint never fully embracing the passion or emotion we're told that's supposed to exist there's sex a lot of nudity some profanity and a bunch of violence i give three thousand years of longing two and a half out of five couches so if you had one wish from a gin what would you wish for and no wishing for more wishes you bad boy.
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Release date: 26 August 2022 (India)
Director: George Miller
Budget: 6 crores USD
Cinematography: John Seale
Costume design: Kym Barrett
Art directors: Nicholas Dare, Sophie Nash