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Starts Thu 1 Sep at:
Luna Leederville
Luna On SX
Windsor Cinema
From the mad genius, George Miller comes this wonderfully engaging adaptation based on the short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” by A.S. Byatt. Starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, Three Thousand Years Of Longing comes to screens at Luna Palace Cinemas from Thursday 1 September!
Fussy loner Alithea Binnie (Swinton) is a narratologist: an academic who studies stories. Visiting Istanbul for a conference, she buys an interesting old glass bottle in the Grand Bazaar. When she later tries to clean it, she accidentally releases a cloud of coloured smoke and – you guessed it – a sexy djinn (Elba), who offers to grant her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. Even as she savours the djinn’s manifold tales of love and hubris, Alithea is professionally suspicious; she knows every trope and cliché, every predictable ending. So how will she use her own wishes to find a happily-ever-after for her trapped companion … and maybe even for herself?
Fans of Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba will find their wishes lavishly granted in George Miller’s delirious fable about a lovelorn djinn.
George Miller trades in the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max for the luscious, dreamy aesthetic he brought to his underrated Babe: Pig in the City and the eroticism of The Witches of Eastwick. Based on a 1994 short story by Possession author A.S. Byatt, this multilayered fantasia is visually rich – even outré – but, especially with Swinton and Elba’s discursive chemistry, also surprisingly cerebral and tender. In his idiosyncratic way, Miller is challenging what big-screen storytelling can be, to memorable and magnificent effect.
★★★★
"A visual dazzler that wears its fantasy elements lightly and with playful humour." Financial Times
“A wish come true … Miller could find more cinema in a single hotel minibar than some contemporary directors could squeeze out of an entire galaxy far, far away.” IndieWire
"George Miller returns to with a sumptuous banquet of storytelling in service of storytelling." The Playlist
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