Editor’s note: Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal and Calendar Editor Caleb Wiseblood wrote Split Screen this week while Glen and Anna Starkey were out of town.
Director George Miller (Mad Max, The Witches of Eastwick, Happy Feet) helms this film adaptation of A.S. Byatt’s short story collection The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye about Alithea (Tilda Swinton), a lonely scholar who on an Istanbul visit releases a Djinn (Idris Elba) who agrees to grant her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. (108 min.)
Caleb Dancing penguins and dystopian drag racers are among the cinematic subjects George Miller has brought to life over the years. He’s no stranger to shifting between R-rated thrillers and G-rated family fare, like Babe: Pig in the City. His latest film, Three Thousand Years of Longing, could have been titled Genie in the City. There’s nothing family-friendly about it, and it definitely earns its R-rating, but its baseline premise—a modern-day love story between a genie and a human—sounds more like Splash than Mad Max. After being released from a glass bottle that entrapped him centuries ago, an unnamed Djinn (Idris Elba) tries to convince the bottle’s new owner, Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton), to make three wishes, which would secure the genie’s freedom. But Binnie is hesitant, as she fears the potential consequences of even the smallest of wishes. As a professional narratologist, she’s well versed in cautionary tales of “be careful what you wish for.” To assure Binnie that he’s not malicious or setting out to trick her, the Djinn retells stories of his past masters over the centuries, each of whom failed in one way or another to make their third and final wish, condemning the genie back to his bottle over and over again. These visually majestic flashback segments are the film’s strongest scenes. As much as I love both Elba and Swinton, I was far more intrigued with glimpses into the Djinn’s past than the duo’s uneasy romance.
Bulbul Three Thousand Years flexes Miller’s zany storytelling prowess. The Djinn’s past is expanded on over three mini stories. The accounts are linked by a thread that weaves the audience, Binnie, and the Djinn through the passage of time—the first starting from as early as the days of the Queen of Sheba. Those accounts are a lesson in narratives that enthrall the narratologist herself. I caught myself absolutely thrown into the striking imagery and writing, and it’s no wonder too because Miller and his co-writer Augusta Gore adapted the film from The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, a short story collection written by English novelist A.S. Byatt that’s heavily inspired by One Thousand and One Nights. The screenplay and imagery draw from Orientalism but we’re rudely snapped back to reality when the plot switches back to present-day Turkey with Binnie. I found her character’s implausibly quick romance with the Djinn shoehorned, and I don’t think Elba and Swinton have onscreen romantic chemistry. The film could have taken its time to explore an otherwise intriguing idea: What more can a supposedly content person wish for?
Caleb I definitely want to rewatch this someday for the visuals alone. There’s so much going on in almost every frame of the film, so I’m sure there are a lot of hidden gems I missed. There were more than a few moments of surreal terror that made me wish this film took more of a horror/fairy tale route. Even before Binnie meets the Djinn, there are hints that she is somehow in tune with an undefined spiritual realm. There’s a really eerie scene where she’s leading a lecture on storytelling and she becomes distracted by a ghostly apparition. The Djinn has a similar moment with a contorting, demonic presence later in the film. I wanted more moments like that, but the film’s overall atmosphere (perfectly paired with a haunting, ethereal score by Tom Holkenborg) felt wonderfully otherworldly enough to keep my spooky cravings at bay for the most part.
Bulbul The film left me with a lot of unanswered questions, so after the high of the past world narrations wore off, I was dissatisfied with the final third. Maybe, Miller isn’t giving us a neatly packaged conclusion. Most of my questions center on Binnie and the Djinn’s relationship, but my main question is why was she even the chosen one? The movie opens with a stunning shot that marks Binnie apart from a crowd thanks to her flaming red hair and bright pink coat amid a sea of dreary gray and brown coats. But what makes her special? Also, there is a very random shot of her in the train with a face mask on. So, this universe probably acknowledges that COVID-19 is real? Am I thinking too hard? Probably. Will I be rewatching? Definitely, once it streams somewhere. Δ
Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal and Calendar Editor Caleb Wiseblood wrote Split Screen this week. Send comments to gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Student Guide 2022.