Seven years ago, George Miller dazzled audiences and critics with the fascinating “Mad Max: Fury Road”a magnificent sequel that has elevated a saga that seemed asleep and from which the spin-off led by Furiosa is expected, which will be played by Argentine Anya Taylor-Joy. In an interlude, the Australian director presents ‘Three Thousand Years Awaiting You’which adapts AS Byatt’s short story collection ‘The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye’ and which was presented in the official selection of the 75th Cannes Film Festival.
Byatt’s tales were a kind of reinterpretation of “The Thousand and One Nights”, the famous medieval collection of traditional tales from the Middle East. While recovering the spirit of the tale on the big screen is appreciated, Miller’s film is too overloaded and with an irregular plot that links several stories that end up leaving the main story in second place, which tells the meeting of two lonely souls who will try to unite after the discovery.
In a way, ‘Three Thousand Years Awaiting You’ starts off well, with Tilda Swinton playing Alithea Binnie, a famous British scholar who is in Istanbul for a convention. There, the middle-aged woman finds a beautiful old bottle. Already in her hotel, the woman rubs the bottle and what appears to be a genius comes out of her contraption, which she announces to fulfill her three wishes. Thus begins a feature film in which Miller does not know exactly what he wants to tell, turning the film into a potpourri of ideas the result of which makes some Turkish soap operas look like HBO productions.
George Miller is intertwined with fairy tales
And it is that his fables, with the exception of the last, do not bring anything, being disconnected stories without a true moral. Miller, in fact, who signs the screenplay with Augusta Gore, loses a golden opportunity to bring a proposal similar to the Gothic and Baroque films of Matteo Garrone, such as ‘The Tale of Tales’ or ‘Pinocchio’, which have been able to combine that grotesque spirit of old-time fairy tales with an adult touch.
The end result is that it is a failed work, aesthetically unappealing and with a main tandem that lacks chemistry.. Tilda Swinton has a nice character, but tremendously flat. Idris Elba appears to be on autopilot, with a role that ends up capturing a kind of passion that, while looking beautiful in fairy tales, his transfer to the present world isn’t entirely convincing.
With certain moments worthy of a fantastic proposal directed by Manolo Caro, ‘Three Thousand Years Awaiting You’ asked for much more, especially being signed by George Miller. A production that, moreover, does not even manage to justify its budget of 60 million dollarswith inappropriate visual effects for a production with strong commercial ambitions and which make the film look like a production of two decades ago, which does not help a feature film that, despite having a good idea, fails to make it happen.
Note: 4
The best: The tale of the young mathematician.
Worse: The constant feeling that Miller has entered a garden he doesn’t know how to get out of.
Source: E Cartelera
