Cannes veteran presents a movie about an ancient genie and explains why it’s so tangible
Cannes veteran presents a movie about an ancient genie and explains why it’s so tangible
George Miller took a few days off from himself crazy max World – Mad Max: Furiosa, the next installment of the franchise, is already in the works in the Australian outback – to show a film from another world. Yes, literally, from another world.
read also Cannes 2022: George Miller debuts ‘3,000 Years’ in ‘Mad Max’
longing for three thousand yearsWhose premiere 75. I got out of competition th Not only is the Cannes Film Festival an intimate, meditative and contained film, it proves that there is more to Miller than frantic energy. crazy max,
“George Told Me” Three thousand years… There will be a ‘small’ movie, a chamber piece,” began his lead actress Tilda Swinton. It is, in fact, a genie’s presence in the story and despite the magical sweep that actor Idris Elba and cinematographer John Seeley lent to the tale of a lonely, melancholy academic brush with a genie. Swinton described the film as “real, accurate, melodious and vivid”.
‘Mad Max’ musician returns
A link to “Three Thousand Years of Longing” is from “Mad Max: Fury Road”, the 2015 Cannes Film Festival opening film, by Dutch music composer Tom Holkenborg. “Tom is a polymath,” says Miller. “I am non-musical. He gave me musical insight. In return, I gave him insight into the context of the drama in the film.”
A middle-aged professor, on a trip to Istanbul, picks up a bottle called Sesam-e-Bulbul (Eye of the Nightingale) from the Grand Bazaar. It features a genie who reveals the details of the thousands of years he has spent in captivity. In the process of granting the narrator three wishes, the genie confronts herself.
Of the excellent quality of the film, Miller, 77, says, “I think most of the stories we tell are allegorical. They are open to interpretation depending on who is watching it.”
a mixture of Arabian Nights The infiltration of vibes and essential contemporary themes make the film a quirky yet measured parable for our times. “I had read the novel long ago and kept it in my mind for so many years. It was very rich and powerful. It investigated a lot of things,” he says of the story of AS Byte from which the film has been adapted.
Still from the ‘longing of three thousand years’.
Meanwhile, Elba believes the film underscores the inevitable fact that wishing is a dangerous art – it’s always a cautionary tale. Miller, on his part, says, “The thing about making any wish come true is that it takes something to make it happen. We want to remove all the turmoil that the world is seeing today.” But it won’t go away until we do something about it.” Three thousand years… It is, in the words of co-author Augusta Gore, “a magical synthesis of science and myth, technology and magic, mortality and immortality”. Elba thinks that’s what makes the film so tangible. “It just feels real. Everything in the story is true except for the genie,” he says.
The writer is a film critic based in New Delhi.