A magical battle of wits

THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING

Director: George Miller

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba, Anna Adams, Ece Yuksel, Jack Braddy, Matteo Bocelli

Rating: (M) ★★★★

In Three Thousand Years of Longing (Rialto and Reading) Tilda Swinton is Alithea, an academic narratologist who travels to Istanbul for a conference. While mooching around the Grand Bazaar she finds a grubby glass bottle that she takes a shine to. Later, in her hotel, she has a go at cleaning it with her electric toothbrush and it breaks, releasing a djinn (Idris Elba). Most of us would be startled by this development but as a narratologist Alithea is used to the weird logic of folk tales and knows that djinn are tricksters whose promises of three wishes are not to be trusted.

To the djinn’s disgust she refuses to make her three wishes, thus keeping him in her control. In an effort to show that he is a djinn you can trust he narrates to her the three times that his own foolish kindness led him to being imprisoned in a bottle. He starts with the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, which is a little different than the story in the Bible, then we enter the heart of the Ottoman Empire during the time of Suleiman the Magnificent.

These were the stories I found the most arresting as they are based on historical facts (very strange historical facts). While the fantastical elements of the story telling are handled well it is the relationship between Alithea and her djinn that is hard to buy into. Alithea with her northern accent seems too level headed and sensible to be taken in by the glamour of the djinn but his stories lure her in. Will she be able to outwit the curse of the three wishes?