The beating heart of George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing lies in the power of narratives and what they mean to us as viewers. The film follows Tilda Swinton’s Alithea, a narratologist who travels to Istanbul, where she attends conferences and gives speeches about the history and power of storytelling. After finding and cleaning an old glass lamp, she accidentally releases Djinn, played by Idris Elba, who grants her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. From there, the film takes an interesting turn. Instead of becoming an action-packed and fantastical epic where Alithea makes wishes with disastrous consequences – she is reluctant to make any wishes. And to convince her, Djinn decides to sit down and tell her all the details of his long life and imprisonment: his great loves, his great regrets, and his great suffering. Continue reading Three Thousand Years of Longing and the Endless Allure of Storytelling →