Three Thousand Years of Longing (George Miller)

I love that this was spoken about for many years as a change of pace for Miller, like a reserved period romance... and then they drop that teaser which looks like a hyper-stylised, Fury Road esque fever dream. Bring it on.

Caught this over the weekend. It isn't the gloriously bonkers follow-up to Fury Road many would have hoped for, but to be fair it's working in a very different register. Whether it succeeds in said register... well, not really, but I'm glad Miller at least tried.

The biggest problem here is that where Fury Road was a triumph of physical filmmaking (albeit with much digital assistance), this feels artificial in comparison. There's plenty of iffy CG and the fantasy scenes often have a sense of trite, unimaginative exoticism (and certainly a fair dash of orientalism). There are memorable images scattered throughout - including the extended version of the trailer shot of a soldier scaling the walls before birthing a horrid spider - but it's often more garish than spectacular. As ever, as a pandemic production, some leeway is due - indeed, Miller has incorporated face masks into some of the scenes in a way that adds extra emotional nuance and even visual texture to a couple of scenes.

Yet there's something strange and compelling about the film on the whole, largely propelled by the intriguing relationship that forms between Swinton's academic and Elba's djinn. Even the stories themselves often have a nice rhythm to them, despite the awkward art design. It's all a grab bag of ideas and not all of them land... but there's enough here to entertain and intrigue. It tries to shove a lot into its final 20-30 minutes after a relatively sedate first hour, sometimes to its detriment but again with enough good ideas to easily propel the final act. Not to mention the film's best visual gag is reserved until the final seconds.

So not the glorious return of George Miller we may have hoped for, but it's too distinctive and enthusiastic to dismiss entirely. A noble failure? A mixed success? Something like that.

Well certainly if it was a different film made by a different filmmaker that particular observation might not have applied :)

Honestly I just found the style of the ‘flashback’ parts of the film to be rather fixated on the exoticism of its settings, to the point where the film itself came across as garish and artificial (the sheer volume of dodgy CGI didn’t help). I particularly wasn’t fond of how leery the camera and delivery was when it came to the overweight characters. Yes, it’s meant to illustrate excess and all with a fantastical undercurrent, but in a film where virtually none of the characters outside the main two have much opportunity to speak for themselves, it all comes across as a bit ‘othering’.

I know Miller’s co-writer Augusta Gore does have a background studying some of the material here, and there’s certainly an effort to ensure the stories being told do have a grounding in folklore and history. So credit there, and I don’t want to suggest any ill-will at all on Miller’s side. But IMO the whole thing seems to sorta bask in the sheer ‘foreignness’ of the cultures it’s portraying - I think it was Donald Clarke who compared some of the visual design to an old Turkish Delight ad, and that’s not too far off the mark! Something like Miguel Gomes’ Arabian Nights trilogy from a few years ago showed more visual and stylistic imagination in how it wove in elements of fantasy and Middle Eastern folklore, and in that case also through a western perspective (Portuguese in that case).

That I still mostly liked the film is testament to a lot of the other things going on it - I’m glad the film exists and Miller aimed high. And I think a generous reading could argue that it’s actually critiquing some of its own storytelling tactics through its overarching themes of how we tell stories… but ultimately IMO the film’s a bit over-busy to really land in that regard.

I actually don't think I'd have thought the harem stuff too noteworthy in this regard (as said, it is based in history) if it wasn't for that one scene in the bathhouse with the broken tile. I think in that scene a character being overweight is played for laughs (as far as my reading of that scene goes anyway) and just felt misjudged tonally to me.

And yes, the nature of the storytelling device here means that inevitably the two main voices will dominate by quite a degree - I definitely don't think Miller should be obliged to give every character that shows up a voice. But there are consequences to that decision and mixed with the often creaky visual design choices, it creates a very shallow take on these cultures and worlds IMO. Although I do think some parts of the film fare better than others in that respect - the more narrow focus of the third story, for example, means there's less scope for Miller to get lost in CG excess, and more effectively capture the sensuality, texture and emotions of the story being told. I think a lot of the design in the second part just felt flat to me due to its bigger scope - shots like the one where they shoot the boat from the tower didn't really have much visual oomph for me.

And finally, to reiterate in the strongest terms: I have no interest in the film being censored or changed. I think Miller is an extremely talented artist who should tell whatever story he damn well wants in whatever way he wants. Having recently listened to the excellent oral history book about the making of Fury Road, he comes across as an immensely smart, thoughtful man. Any criticisms I make are simply trying to articulate why the film didn't totally work for me: I am extremely glad a film this unusual on this budget level exists in the year 2022, but can't pretend I liked it more than I actually did :)

Honestly, at the end of the day I did just find the stylistic portrayal of the cultures here rather shallow and surface level - as another reviewer noted, akin to a perfume ad at times, just soaking in the 'exotic' nature of the settings. But I think that circles back around to what is by far my main criticism of the film: that the film just visually is sort of flat and trite in those sections. This all felt rather artificial to me, not at all helped by the copious levels of dodgy CG. I've no problem whatsoever in showing a sordid side of culture or history - this just didn't work for me, even allowing for the extra layer of fantasy and character perspective at play here. I just didn't find the visual design appealing or convincing.

As mentioned in my initial post, I do think this is potentially a consequence of pandemic production, at least in part. It's clear that this was a film where production was deeply disrupted by lockdown (literally days into the initial planned shoot) and I think there were likely visual and production compromises that had to be made to get it finished. AFAIK they couldn't film the modern Istanbul exteriors in Istanbul (as had initially been planned) as a result of the restrictions, and had to build a set to replace it. I totally sympathize with the practical challenges that must have led to, and am very happy the film was completed successfully despite the circumstances. Whether the film made in less disruptive circumstances would've been substantially different in terms of look and feel, well that we'll never know.

I think there are genuine, fair and non-outraged criticisms that can be made about films like this or Isle of Dogs. Indeed, I personally loved that film and was much more on the fence about this. Ultimately, it's all a matter of perspective and individual response I guess! I will reiterate once more that I don't think George Miller is at all coming from a bad place here - I deeply respect his and his co-writer's efforts to remain true to the stories and histories they're drawing from. I just think in execution the film just for me fell short, often feeling aloof. Not always, though - there are visual aspects of this film I did very much like, such as how they utilised the space of the hotel room and size/abilities of the djinn. Even the sequence where the musician plays an impossible instrument… that’s a moment where the approach taken here does work IMO to conjure something mysterious and fascinating.

Yeah for me I don't think it reached that fever-dream level, with the exception of some scattered moments here and there such as the aforementioned impossible instrument or spider transformation. If anything, it felt glossy to the point where the unreality and mysteriousness was sanded down to fairly unremarkable CG spectacle. All IMO of course :)

Not that I have any fundamental problem with hyper-stylized art design! I think something like Kung Fu Hustle so clearly exists in the realm of pure cartoon that the crude CG enhances the humour and style of the film. Or, to pick another film with an Ottoman Empire sojourn, Karel Zeman's classic take on Munchausen has such a distinctive, surreal visual identity that it feels truly otherworldly in a way I don't think this manages.

As for the box office, while I'd love to see it doing better than it has done I do think it's such a particular film that it was never going to have mass appeal. That it managed to get a $60 million budget or whatever is fairly remarkable in the first place - Miller rightly cashing in that 'one for me' cheque afforded from Fury Road's success!