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A14 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 24 august 2022
Review: Love, hope and ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’

By LINDSEY BAHR ture to Yale students over
AP Film Writer 20 years ago identified a
There is not a cynical mol- trend exemplified in films
ecule in the makeup of like “The Legend of Bagger
George Miller’s “ Three Vance” and “The Green
Thousand Years of Longing, Mile” in which the powers
“ a patient and occasion- belonging to Black charac-
ally dazzling fantasy about ters, often exoticized, seem
love, myth, hope, compan- to only be used to benefit
ionship and perhaps, most white characters. No mat-
of all, about storytelling. Id- ter how the various films try
ris Elba and Tilda Swinton, to justify it, the relationship,
wrapped in plush white as Matt Zoller Seitz later
bathrobes, will reiterate the wrote in Salon, “is that of a
storytelling point over and master and servant.”
over again during a vulner- You don’t get a more literal
able, sprawling conversa- depiction of master and
tion in a stately Istanbul ho- This image released by Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures shows Tilda Swinton, right, and Idris Elba in servant than that of genie
tel suite that’s nice enough “Three Thousand Years of Longing.” and the person who re-
to make one consider a Associated Press leased them, and here, the
career in academia. free woman she’s also a and finally child bride of an impatient wondering what fact is that the djinn is Black
Though the setting and “narratologist” who is so old merchant who desires it’s all building towards and the human is white.
wardrobe might feel famil- well-versed in mythology knowledge, Zefir (Burcu and if you even care, as But “Three Thousand Years
iar, this story is anything but. that she knows all the ways Gölgedar). Alithea doubles down on of Longing” does not seem
Only one of the parties, in which wish-making and These stories are enchant- her stance that she’d rath- like the kind of movie that is
Swinton’s Alithea Binnie, is granting can go wrong. ing, brutal, sensual, gro- er not make any wishes at internationally embracing
human. Elba is an immortal And yet by not fulfilling her tesque and often involve all. But she, and the audi- this idea.
djinn, the fancy term for the duty to make three wishes, power struggles and irra- ence, are in for a surprise. Or perhaps the phrase, like
anglicized “genie,” whom she also is condemning the tional decisions made for It’s the kind of moment the Bechdel Test, was never
Alithea has stumbled upon djinn to nonexistence. He love. that doesn’t make a lot of supposed to be a literal line
in a small, striped glass bot- tries to convince her other- Miller gets to play in a wide emotional sense on paper, of demarcation between
tle in an unsorted bin of an wise, by telling fantastical array of cultures as the but that’s why we go to movies that are accept-
Istanbul antique store. stories from his past, span- djinn skips through time, the movies, isn’t it? Swinton able and movies that are
In most stories, the ability to ning some three thousand all with their own shimmer- and Miller make it work. not, but a way of talking
suddenly get your heart’s years, and all the times ing palettes and fairy tale Still for all its romanticism, about representation and,
desire with a wish comes he was sent back to the hyperrealism. It’s a nice the film may also sit upon yes, storytelling. Maybe, like
as good news, at least at bottle for caring too much reminder that Miller is a an uneasy foundation: Swinton herself once said
first. But Alithea isn’t one about the wisher, from man who can tackle both The inglorious trope of the when faced with criticisms
who has a list of wants. Not Sheba (Aamito Lagum), to “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “magical, mystical Negro.” around the race of another
only is she a proud, con- a servant who longs for a “Babe: Pig in the City.” The term, was popularized fictional character, it can
tented single and child- prince, Gulten (Ece Yüksel), At times, you may grow by Spike Lee, who in a lec- all be true.q

Serena Williams tells Meghan of baby’s injury before match

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ser- was, it was crazy. And, you be with me,” said Williams, The tennis great and posed to be napping in the
ena Williams and Meghan know, and then like every who has indicated that her Meghan, who are friends, room at the time, but his
recount challenges they’ve night after that, I just was final tournament will be the spoke at length on Tues- nanny had taken him out
experienced as working with her the whole time and U.S. Open, which starts in day’s episode about the to get a bite to eat. The in-
mothers on the Duchess was like you’re going to New York next week. challenges of balancing cident left everyone shak-
of Sussex’s first podcast, in- high profile careers in the en, Meghan said.
cluding stories of having to public eye and mother- She said she wanted to
work soon after scary inci- hood. spend time with her son,
dents involving their chil- “So when you went and but she and Harry had to
dren. played that match the go and do another official
Williams, a 23-time Grand next morning, no one knew engagement.
Slam champion who said what your night had been “The focus ends up be-
recently “the countdown like the night before. They ing on how it looks instead
has begun” to her re- forgot that human piece of of how it feels,” Meghan
tirement, recounted on it,” Meghan said about Wil- said. “And part of the hu-
Meghan’s “Archetypes” liams’ French Open experi- manizing and the break-
Spotify podcast Tuesday ence. ing through of these labels
that she played a match at Meghan recounted an inci- and these archetypes and
the 2018 French Open after dent during a tour of South these boxes that we’re
a nearly sleepless night af- Africa with her husband, put into is having some
ter her daughter, Olympia, Prince Harry, and their son, understanding on the hu-
broke her wrist. Archie, in which a fire broke man moments behind the
“I somehow managed to Serena Williams appears at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly out in her son’s room and scenes that people might
Hills, Calif., on March 27, 2022, left, and Meghan, Duchess of
win, but I was so emotion- Sussex, appears at a service of thanksgiving for the reign of the pair had to leave their not have any awareness of
ally spent and just like so Queen Elizabeth II in London on June 3, 2022. baby to continue their offi- and to give each other a
emotionally drained that it Associated Press cial duties. Archie was sup- break.q