Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba in Three Thousand Years of Longing.Credit:Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures
Drolly played by Tilda Swinton,the story’s central character,Alithea Binnie,is an academic who leads a life dominated by her intellect. This tends to mean that nothing surprises her. So when an enormous genie bursts out of a small antique bottle that she’s bought in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar,she greets his offer of three wishes with academic scepticism. A specialist in the history of legend and fairytale,she’s familiar with this proposition and it rarely turns out well. She has everything she wants,she tells him firmly. Yet he persists.
They’re in her Istanbul hotel room and at this stage,the djinn (Idris Elba) has reduced himself to a more manageable size. He is wearing a white terry towelling bathrobe identical to her own and if it weren’t for his large,pointed ears,they might be a vacationing couple discussing Istanbul’s sightseeing possibilities.
Instead,he’s pleading for his freedom. If she doesn’t accept his offer,he’ll be forced back into the bottle for more years of incarceration. As a result,he must persuade her that he can fulfil her wishes and,more importantly,that he can advise her to make the kind of wishes likely to bring about a happy ending.
In tune:Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton.Credit:Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures
Like Scheherazade before him,he pins his hopes on his abilities as a storyteller. By way of an audition,he begins to relate three tales which explain how he wound up in the bottle.
This puts Miller on slippery ground. Any film fan who grew up on old-fashioned sword-and-sandal movies will be aware of their potential for producing cheesy cliches. But it soon becomes clear that Miller knows exactly how to avoid them. The first of the stories is set in the palace of the Queen of Sheba and the burnished beauty of John Seale’s cinematography,together with the Dutch composer Tom Holkenborg’s music,takes it right out of Hollywood to give it all the romance to be found in an earlyArabian Nights illustration.