Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Summary: Alithea Binnie is an expert on storytelling, and while at a conference in Istanbul purchases a decorative bottle in the souk. When she removes the top, back in her hotel room, whoosh, a Djinn appears and offers to grant her three wishes, which on their fulfilment will free him from the world of humans. Alithea is a contented woman, unencumbered by emotional baggage and therefore wishes for nothing. Frustrated the Djinn tells her the stories about how after several millennia he is still a captive, hoping that someone will free him. The stories take Alithea (and us) back to the court of the Queen of Sheba, then that of Suleiman the Magnificent and finally into the life of Zefir, the young wife of a Turkish merchant. But will they induce Alithea to ask for three wishes?

Content: The stories are magical and mythical and do contain some non-revelatory sex and in one the extensive presentation of a whole bevy of very large naked ladies. Alithea and the Djinn spend much of the movie clad in bath robes in her hotel room in Istanbul. She, when attending the conference as a speaker  she hallucinates and sees an ancient figure in the audience, causing her to faint. It is evident that the Djinn is adversely affected by electronic waves of various sorts, giving Alithea problems when security demand that the bottle in which he is concealed must be put through the X-Ray machine.

A View: Regular visitors may note that I have renamed by summary from “Elevator Pitch” to “Summary” since that is what I now write. My wife and I saw this in Madrid on Friday last. There were not many of us in the screen, but it was a 4 pm. It was said to have cost $60 million and so far has only recovered a tenth of that, which is a bit unfair since it is an engaging and charming film. I was completed captivated when a magician in the court of the queen of Sheba played an instrument, visibly assisted by magic string players and drummers. So go to a cinema near you and give it a go. It is well worth a couple of hours of your time, particularly if you are a storyteller.

George Miller! He had a job to raise the money to make “Mad Max” and now he can do whatever he wants. If you haven’t them check out “Mad Max: Fury Road”  and “The Witches of Eastwick”.