Three thousand years of waiting ★★★
FANTASY (2022)
Directed by: George Miller
InterpretationsCast: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba

“The stories he tells Pravda are a way to get her to make three wishes, but they actually give him the opportunity to get psychotherapy.”

The great George Miller put aside the popular Mad Max legend for a while in order to deal with another, no less legendary tradition, originating from the world of the East. Starring the (always) wonderful Tilda Swinton as Dr. Alithia Binney, a lone British academic specializing in history and mythology who is in Istanbul for a conference. There, out of the blue, she meets… a genie (Idris Elba) who offers her three classic wishes in exchange for her freedom. The suspicious scientist, however, is not convinced, and then he begins to talk about the millennial adventure that led him to her hotel room.

Miller clearly draws inspiration from The Thousand and One Nights and other Eastern lore, creating a modern twist to bring it to today’s audience. The Queen of Sheba, Solomon the Wise, Suleiman the Magnificent and others, they emerge from the pages of history and legends to intersect with the course of the genie through the ages. His own storytelling and lavish special effects take us from the sultan’s Constantinople to Mesopotamia, while the initially skeptical Truth also captivates.

Unlike the usual depictions of genies in literature and cinema, this one is much more… human: he loves and falls in love like ordinary mortals, and at the same time has many of his own weaknesses. “He is immortal, therefore it is not in his nature to fall in love, to experience human emotions, desires and lusts. But this is where his journey begins. The stories he tells Pravda are a way to get her to make three wishes, but they actually give him the opportunity to get psychotherapy. This is an opportunity to reflect on what happened three thousand years ago and perhaps not repeat the same mistakes. The stories he tells are important to him,” says Idris Elba about his character.

Of course, both he and Tilda Swinton are exemplary in their roles in a film that really manages to take the viewer on a journey somewhere between the traditional and the unusual, though the pacing could have been better.