Three Thousand Years of Longing - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Three Thousand Years of Longing



Movie:
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Audio:
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Final Score:


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Movie
Before George Miller returns to the world of Mad Max with the upcoming Furiosa film in the next couple of years, he has decided to engage us with the first original story of his since the early 1990s. Since then he’s come to us with main stream movies, sequels to Mad Max, and generally been staying out of the lime light ever since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road. So you can color me VERY excited when I caught wind that he was endeavoring to make a passion projection film that wasn’t a sequel, wasn’t a mainstream franchise hit like Babe, and not an animated film ala Happy Feet. The trailer is intentionally vague, and upon hearing that this was getting a theatrical release this last summer I buckled down ready to go. Unfortunately life had other plans and I missed the short theatrical window for Three Thousand Years of Longing and had to wait for the home video release to show up on my doorstep.

Thus, here begins our tale. A tale that happens to be one of Miller’s weirdest stories to date, dealing with magic, love, fate, and the intricacies of wishing for something and finding out what is the true desire of your heart. The film opens up with Dr. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) narrating her own personal story of meeting a Djinn (Idris Elba). She’s a bit of an eccentric academic type, having devoted herself to the study of literature and storytelling, having a bit of bland and banal history of her own. Everything changes for her when she goes to a conference in Istanbul, where she comes across a little blue striped bottle in a bazaar, which turns out to hold a Djinn (genie) who offers to grant her three wishes.

A true scholar of the history of wishes, Alithea immediately begins to suspect the Djinn (who are historically tricksters) and confronts him on the problems of wishing for something that is not in the cards, and the typically horrible consequences of making a wish. To alleviate her fears, the Djinn tells her the tales of his three imprisonments within a bottle, and what became of the people who came before her making their wishes before she can make her own.

The story itself is fascinating, especially in the first couple of acts. It’s a luscious and lavish tale ripped right out of the “Arabian Nights” and details three very different stories pertaining to the Djinn and his entrapment within the bottle. In fact, you can get completely lost within the stories as Miller is a master of visual storytelling, steeping every last second of the first hour and something minutes with more narrative in the visuals than most scripts can with hours of dialog. However, it’s the 3rd act when Dr. Binnie makes HER wish where things start to fall apart. I can sort of understand where he was going with the threads woven into the narrative tapestry, but it just failed to connect them all and make sense of them all by the end. Instead many of them fade out never to return, and he sort of makes up his own ending for the tale between the two.

Looking back and contemplating the film for a second time, it seems to be that Miller was intent on making a story about the futility of making someone love you, but at the same time he almost embraces it as well. As I said above, the film is exquisitely shot, and the sumptuously strewn with incredible set pieces, and the first two thirds of the movie are utterly mesmerizing. I was hanging on every word up until the final moment where Alithea makes her wish and logic starts to prevail. Honestly, it’s kind of like trying to analyze a time travel film due to the logistics of time travel starting to fall apart if you think about them too hard. The same phenomenon plays out here, as the first two thirds draws you and in keeps you wanting more, but the third act makes you start to look at the wish logically and then doubt and frustration enter you mind, ruining the suspension of disbelief.




Rating:

Rated R for some sexual content, graphic nudity and brief violence




Video:

While there is a 4K UHD disc available, Warner has chosen to make it MOD (Manufactured on Demand) due to the low theatrical sales the film received, and thusly we weren’t able to review it. If the native 4K master on Blu-ray is anything to go by, it should be an AMAZING disc, as this is just simply an incredible looking film. The movie is one of the most lavish and sumptuous looking productions I have seen in modern years, with tons of reds, blues, and dark wood grains to give it a very Arabic feel. TONS Of color sparkles from every location, whether it be the glowing palms of the genie to the intricate world of Turkey. The bright green of the London park grasses literally almost slaps you in the face, and detail levels are resplendent. There is some smoke and haziness that is intentionally done with the Djinn, and a few times I did notice his CGI was a BIT cheap looking, but overall this is an incredible looking demo disc.









Audio:

The Dolby Atmos track is no less stunning than the video, giving us a layered and textured track that is a delight to listen to. One of the hidden features of Atmos outside of the overhead usage and omnidirectional use of surrounds is that many Atmos tracks can be so light and airy. Instead of feeling mired in one place you can sort of hear the sound float all around you, and that is exactly how I would describe the Atmos mix in Three Thousand Years of Longing. It just dances around the room with a beautiful and haunting melodic score that just pulls you in and lets you float around with it. Bass is intense and powerful when needed (such as a stone slamming shut, or the Djinn bellowing at Alithea), but also soft and complimentary for a good majority of the track. The surrounds are utterly divine as it uses a complex layering of ambient noises, discrete sounds coming from both around and above the listening point (listen to when the Sheik goes into battle to hear things get crazy) and an overall ambiance that is thick and syrupy in terms of it’s density. Dialog is crystal clear as usual, and combined with all of the before mentioned features, makes this track one of my absolute favorites in recent times.








Extras:

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Final Score: ​

Three Thousand Years of Longing is both incredibly intoxicating and yet totally frustrating at the same time. I loved a LARGE portion of the film, but felt the ending just completely lost focus and couldn’t live up to the hype of the first two acts. It is what it is, but I still ended up enjoying the film for what it was. The Blu-ray looks and sounds INCREDIBLE (there is a 4K UHD set out there, but because it is MOD Warner wasn’t able to send us out a review copy) and fans of twisted “Arabian Nights” esque tales will be drawn to the magic and fantasy of the dark and sodid tales. I did notice that not only was the disc devoid of any extras, but though the slipcover advertises it as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, there was only a Blu-ray included in the package (could have just been my copy, or it could be a misprint on the slipcover) Definitely worth checking out if the trailer peaks your interest (it is a hard R rating as a warning).


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba, Erdil Yasaroglu
Directed by: George Miller
Written by: George Miller, Augustua Gore, AS. Byatt (based upon the short story)
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos, English Dolby Digital 5.1, English DVS 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: R
Runtime: 108 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: November 15th, 2022

Recommendation: Fascinating Watch