It looks simple but it's quite complicated to make a wish that you're certain it'll come true. It's close to impossible to get to three wishes. At least that's the message sent by "Three Thousand Years of Longing". Among others...
Alithea is a single woman with a university degree in letters, and more precisely active in the niche of mythology, legends, fantasy in general. During a trip to Istanbul she finds in a bazaar "the magic lamp" (= actually a bottle), holding a djinn who presents her the standard offer of three wishes. What's not so standard is the offer presentation, once that Alithea, having some experience with stories of golden fishes ended badly, has some doubts in placing the first wish. That's where most of the movie's set - finding out from the djinn's three thousand years experience what side effects a too quick decision might yield, and how much entangled are the ways this can generate.
The movies first looks like a "1001 Nights" mixed with Terry Gilliam's Munchausen or "The Fisher King". It's neither. You can feel a bit of the typical chaos you encounter in other movies of George Miller ("Mad Max"), but this is a calm chaos and somehow more... organized, despite the complexity it grows to. The movie advances a lot on the different threads of the djinn's life history and of the wishes he had to fulfill, a bit too far and with too much naration added, although we're carried through it by the stunning visuals of the old oriental world, which compensates a bit. Sometimes the story gets so dense that seems more like a philosophical audio-book. It's ok if you have some years behind you and the right mood to meditate on the various meaning that you can extract and maybe correlate with your life experience. Unfortunately though, it loses points on engaging a less tired viewer, who might get bored. For me, fortunately, or actually.. unfortunately :-) the first category above fits better...
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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