While giving a lecture on the power of myth and storytelling, Alithea (Tilda Swinton) begins to hallucinate on stage before fainting. When she has recovered from the spell, she takes to the market streets of Istanbul where she finds a small glass jar which she picks up for herself as a memento of her journey. Back at the hotel, Alithea begins to clean some of the dirt from the jar, and in doing so releases the Djinn (Idris Elba) who had been trapped in the bottle for hundreds of years. Having been released, the Djinn offers Alithea three wishes, but the woman is quite content with the life she built up for herself and is unsure of what to wish for. To help inspire her, the Djinn tells her of his previous masters; their wishes he granted, and their love which he lost. 

George Miller has perforated his return to the dystopic world of Mad Max by writing and directing Three Thousand Years of Longing for MGM Studios, released under the United Artists brand. What sounds at first like The Arabian Nights framework, confined into a Covid production chamber piece quickly takes on a life of its own worthy of any of the greatest sandy, sun-soaked iterations of the famed anthology. A story about stories, we are whisked away to the magic lands of the past, where the supernatural had a strong sway over the course of history, but for all the magic contained herein, the true power at the heart of all four of these stories is the tragedy of love. 

The film has a few narrative threads that it weaves into its 108-minute runtime, but before it can embrace its flights of fancy, it stays relatively grounded as Alithea and the Djinn work through their introductions. As a narratologist, and still in recovery from her prior fainting spell, Alithea initially wants little to do with the Djinn as she knows the danger of having a wish get misinterpreted by the cosmic being, but the Djinn assures her that he is not a trickster – nor is he a figment of the imagination – and offers to regale her with his storied past. While this extended first act takes place in the stark white setting of Alithea’s hotel room, Miller has already begun to work his magic utilizing practical effects whenever possible ranging from something as simple as having Elba stand on a box to increase his already impressive height, or building a small-scale set of the room for when he is in his largest form. This tiptoeing into the supernatural not only prepares us for what is to come, but also lends credence to Alithea’s opening voiceover informing us that this story is true, but in order for us to believe it, it must be framed as a fairy tale. Miller is testing the waters and for those who stay for the start of the Djinn’s first story, they will certainly be rewarded for their trust. 

The stories that follow are cloaked in radiant gold and lustful reds that find the Djinn at the side of his first love, Queen Sheba (Aamito Lagum) as she falls under the spell of King Solomon (Nicolas Mouawad), a sorcerer who is privy to the Djinn’s spying and imprisons him for the first time. The second story, and the longest of the tales, introduces us to Gülten (Ece Yüksel), a young concubine who falls in love with Mustafa (Ronny Mouawad), the son of the sultan, but before she can make her third wish she is slain, and the Djinn is doomed to walk the halls of the palace until his hidden bottle is discovered and he can fulfill his new master’s three wishes in exchange for his freedom. Decades later, he is eventually discovered by Sugarlump (Anna Adams), who, in her fright wishes him back into his bottle and casts him back out to sea. In his penultimate release, his bottle has been gifted to Zefir (Burcu Gölgedar) whose merchant husband keeps her hidden away and showered with gifts. Bored in her prison, she asks the Djinn, whose bottle was gifted to her, for knowledge, and complying as is his will, the Djinn finds great enrichment in watching her grow in the arts and sciences of the universe. But all things must end, and the Djinn eventually sentences himself back into the bottle to protect Zefir, and over two centuries later, his blue and white striped bottle is picked up by Alithea. 

The framework of the story, having been set, it is now ready to become the modern fairytale that was promised at the start.  It should not be that surprising that Alithea’s relationship with the Djinn becomes romantic, and it speaks to Swinton’s skill that she is able to sell this change of heart from wanting nothing to do with a being she is not even sure exists to becoming romantically involved with the Djinn. The initial hesitation comes, not from the page, but from our own discomfort in seeing the traditionally rendered, mythic spirit transposed onto the modern setting. During the lecture at the start of the film, Alithea is part of a presentation that posits our comic book heroes as descendants of the gods of myth and the creatures of fable. These characters all came about from a specific need of the audience, and in the same way that Iron Man would feel out of place in the court of Sheba, the Djinn feels out of place in our modern age. Miller does not ignore the fact, and we see how advances in technology strain the Djinn. The world is connected like never before, advances in science, medicine, and exploration, and the ease of access to that information, is unprecedented thanks to the internet. While there are still mysteries yet unsolved, we have a greater understanding of how the world works, and this is Miller’s true thesis statement: do stories still have a place in our modern lives? 

He does not answer this question head-on, rather he uses the human desire – some say, need – to love and be loved as a metaphor for the concept of stories. Alithea, again changing her stance from where we found her at the beginning of the film, decides that she will open her heart once again. She extends an olive branch to her nasty neighbors. In the park where she writes, there are couples in love all around her. They all carry with them stories; of love, of loss, of laughter. Stories that make them who they are. And Alithea has her own story, one of an all-powerful Djinn, who has longed to be free, and now having that freedom has promised to return to her in her lifetime and to share with her the stories of what he has seen. 

Three Thousand Years of Longing is one of those films that can only be described as an experience, one which washes over its audience like a powerful wave. Adopting an amorphous shape early on, what feels like it will be a two-handed, dialogue-heavy, musing on the philosophy of storytelling, it opens up into a lush world full of magic and intrigue. John Seale’s cinematography beautifully captures the exquisite sets by Lisa Thompson as well as Kym Barrett’s work on costumes, all of which are backed by Tom Holkenborg’s score. While it does expand and force us to question our understanding of myth, rebuking our assumptions on where the stories are heading, it cannot be denied that the trio of Miller, Swinton, and Elba – in one of his most profound roles to date – are the true heart and soul of the film. Together, they have released a magic deep inside of themselves, and they give to us a simple story that in its scope and ambition becomes one of the finest cinematic experiences of the year.