“Three Thousand Years of Longing” (M) *** and a half

THIS modern take on the “Arabian Nights” directed by George Miller (maker of the Mad Max films among others), co-written with Augusta Gore and based on British novelist AS Byatt’s novella-length story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye”, owes more than a little to Australian inputs behind and inside the camera.

Narratologist Alithea (Tilda Swinton) arrives in Istanbul to lecture on the shifting power of myth in the age of rational science. 

“All gods and monsters outlive their purpose,” she confidently opines, “and are reduced to the role of metaphor.” 

Before long, her hotel room is scarcely big enough to contain a djinn (or genie) whom she has freed from the bottle in which it has waited three millennia. 

Played with verve by Idris Elba and looming over Alithea, the djinn grants her three wishes, thereby opening a door to possibilities in her finite life and potentially freeing him from the seemingly endless struggle in his.

Delivered in elaborate, colourful visuals evoking Hollywood fantasy, “Three Thousand Years of Longing” largely works because of the contrast and inevitable romance between Swinton’s rational academic and Elba’s emotional genie. 

Its 108 minutes were hardly enough for this Tilda Swinton devotee. Alithea has less of the story than the djinn, but that doesn’t diminish her presence in the story. She has been given three wishes to use wisely or otherwise – if she declares any of them, the djinn is obliged to turn it into reality. We know there are risks in having a wish granted, don’t we?

At Palace Electric, Dendy and Limelight