During the Cannes Film Festival, Konbini shares his favorites with you. What is three thousand waiting for you? We all remember the shock felt seven years ago now in front of Mad Max: Fury Road, fourth explosive part of a saga initiated by George Miller. An underestimated guy, who we take for the one who led pigs in Babe and made an animated film anything but lambda, Happy Feet. Still, Fury Road reminded who was the boss, and while we wait for the Furyosa prequel, the Australian wanted to take a break between these grueling and enormous shoots with a “smaller film”: Three thousand years at you wait. The story of Alithea (Tilda Swinton), a British narratology teacher who, while she finds herself in Istanbul for a conference, discovers a bottle that will make a genie, a djinn (Idris Elba) appear. Three wishes, which she does not desire, she whose loneliness is a choice. A discussion then begins between the two beings, each telling their story, their desires, their fears. Does that seem minimal? On the contrary. Why is it good? It’s always pleasant to see a confirmed filmmaker make a declaration of love for the seventh art. He doesn’t do it as frontally as Hazanavicius, but Miller makes this fine gesture of returning to the basics of cinema, namely telling stories, illustrating what was at the origins of feature films, of this oral narration . When the djinn tells Alithea how he found himself imprisoned in this bottle three times, we find ourselves in long and very beautiful flashbacks that take us from Yemen to the former Ottoman Empire. draw on the mechanics of the story to show us how a story works, what are its limits, its repetitive elements, its liberating elements. Miller, who seems to be the reincarnation of the character of Tilda Swinton, questions our relationship to these stories: is that enough to make us happy? From someone who suffered while making his last masterpiece and is about to return to it, this is more than significant. He could do all this on the fly, not giving a damn. . After all, they’re just a duo in a hotel room telling each other stories. It looks like the classic containment film made with the means at hand. Nay. The immensity of the flashbacks thanks to the grandiloquent decorations, with monsters, mythological figures, goes to the antipodes. For the record, Miller wanted to adapt this short story by AS Byatt since the end of the 1990s. It is therefore clearly a fake little film, a fake children’s film about tales. Especially since, at the average level, it’s impressive. It’s much prettier, busier and more impressive than Guy Ritchie’s last Aladdin – a genie in a lamp, inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, the comparison holds. While it has a budget three times smaller (60 million against 180). He works on his frame, has fun with his camera effects, his transitions. There isn’t a shot in these flashbacks that doesn’t offer a new idea of cinema. Even if it means touching on Nanardesque kitsch, which he always avoids despite the bombast of these ideas. Visually, few films this year should disorient us in this way, while questioning us about our relationship to death, life, love – and drying up our tear glands. From a filmmaker from 77 years old, there is something to be impressed about. What do we remember? The actor who stands out: the duo, obviously (with a preference for Tilda Swinton) The main quality: his crazy ambition The main default: some sequences at the beginning may seem long A film that you will like if you liked: Aladdin, and the filmography of George Miller It could have been called: The Djinn in the Lamp The quote to sum up the film: “A trip to the origins of exotic and impressive cinema”
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