What you may need to know.
1. In George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing, the key to getting the most out of magical wishes without suffering repercussions isn’t being clever or trying to outsmart the ancient djinn that’s been trapped in a bottle for countless lifetimes. It’s stalling.
2. Three Thousand Years of Longing — an epic fantasy based on novelist A.S. Byatt’s short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” — concerns Dr. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton), a solitary mythography scholar whose life is her work.
3. This trailer finds Alithea (ancient Greek for “truthful”) on her way to Istanbul for a conference and shopping at a bazaar where she puchases a bottle containing a djinn (Idris Elba).
4. Being the expert of myths and legends, Alithea knows that taking the djinn up on his offer of three wishes is a surefire way to inadvertently end up ruining her life, and so she instead implores the djinn to tell her about the people he’s granted wishes for in the past.
5. Questionable as some of Three Thousand Years of Longing’s optics are, the trailer’s fantastical visuals are both striking and sumptuous, promising signs for the film’s ability to make the most of its fairytale conceit.
Andy’s verdict: Genius In A Bottle!
Andy’s real verdict: Best enjoyed with a jazz cigarette.
Release: Cinemas on August 31.