Three Thousand Years of Longing (5 Stars)

It's a story that's been overdone as long as books have been written and films have been made: someone finds a bottle, rubs it and a genie comes out who offers to grant three wishes. If that sounds boring to you, think again. "Three Thousand Years of Longing" adds new ideas. Apart from which, how could anyone turn his back on a film with Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton in the leading roles? I know I criticised Idris Elba's performance in "Beast" earlier this week, but in this film he's back in top form. As for Tilda Swinton, she's always been in top form.

Tilda plays Dr. Alithea Binnie, a narratologist. That's a new word to me, but in the context of the film it's obvious what it means. It's a person who studies stories and story structures. She visits Istanbul to hold a lecture on the historical importance of stories. Today we have science, but in the past stories were necessary to explain anything for which there was no scientific explanation. We still need stories today, because science hasn't yet explained everything, but as scientific discovery advances stories will gradually fade away.

Alithea buys an old lamp in a shop in Istanbul. She cleans it with the help of her electric toothbrush. Yuck! Then a genie (or Djinn, depending on the transliteration) comes out and offers to grant three wishes.

As a narratologist Alithea isn't naive enough to accept the offer. She says that stories of wishes being granted all end in tragedy. There's always a trick. The genie insists that he isn't a trickster, but isn't that what all tricksters say? Instead of this they spend the following hours talking to one another. Alithea tells the genie about her past, which is relatively mundane in comparison to the tales the genie has to tell of his life in the past 3000 years. Yes, his tales tell of women who suffered after making wishes, but he claims that he didn't trick them. It was the women's own fault that they wished for the wrong things.

Alithea is still reluctant to make wishes, but the genie is desperate. He says that if he doesn't grant three wishes he'll be sentenced to wander as an invisible, disembodied soul. Alithea still doesn't believe him. Is he applying emotional blackmail because he can't appeal to her greed?

But... no, I'll stop there. No more spoilers! All I'll say is that this isn't just a fairy tale, it's a deeply philosophical story with romantic undertones. I had tears in my eyes as the film came to an end. It's a brilliant film!