They say that Istanbul is more than 2,000 years old. And when you walk through its ancient streets and quilt-work bazaars, you believe it. Perched on the peninsula where East meets West, it’s as storied a city as you’ll ever find—and filled with its own stories, too. More tales than tiles fill its timeless streets.
What better place for narratologists to meet?
A narratologist, as Alithea Binnie would be happy to tell you, is a person who studies stories. Alithea is one of the most prominent narratologists on the planet. Which makes it ironic (or perhaps altogether fitting) that her own recent story has been so plain. She’s divorced, childless, a woman with no attachments to speak of. But that’s fine, she’d say. Better than fine. She’s respected and independent, after all; she’s able to do what she likes and when she likes it. Alithea’s solitary life is her happily ever after.
But the ancient Istanbul can play games with even the most logical of visitors. She begins to see beings, creatures, who seem to billow out of her fairy tales: a dwarf whose skin burns. A dour sage dressed for millennia-old gatherings. She faints on stage when she sees one such visage. And when concerned colleagues ask her if she’s all right, she waves their concern away. Her imagination, she says, is “ambushing” her.
Composure regained, Alithea heads to Istanbul’s famed Grand Bazaar. And there, in a shop three rooms deep, she finds a strange, stoppered bottle underneath trinkets and beads.
“I like it,” she tells the shopkeeper. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it has an interesting story.”
And indeed it does. For when she begins cleaning it with her electric toothbrush, the stopper pops out and something pours from it—a vapor-turned-smoke-turned-substance-turned-body. Human … no, human-like. And gigantic.
A djinn.
Not a genie from Aladdin, funny and blue. Rather, a creature from myth and story—somber and powerful and unpredictable as fate.
But his offer is predictable: Three wishes he’ll give Alithea. If it’s within his power to grant them, he will.
And once he does, the djinn will go free.
But Alithea, as a scientist of storytelling, is dubious. Every wish in every story she’s ever known turns out badly. Every story filled with wishes is a cautionary story. What wish can she make that won’t go awry? What wish can be granted that won’t twist her own story?
Her own, quiet, happily ever after?
We’ll get to the spiritual elements of the djinn in just a moment. But at least taking the being at face value, he seems like a nice enough fellow.
He admits that wishes can go awry. And he further admits that his own stories of granting wishes lend credence to the whole “cautionary tale” trope. Still, it’s not his fault: He’s really cared for each of his masters (he tells Alithea), sometimes going well beyond the bounds of his “wish” directive to protect and care for them.
Naturally, he forms a strong bond with Alithea, too—as she does with him. The Djinn seems to be especially sacrificial when it comes to Alithea’s, um, wishes (though whether that dedication is due to his affection for her or the bonds of their agreement, it’s difficult to say).
Alithea sacrifices for her favorite Djinn, too. And both find a way to encourage Alithea’s bigoted neighbors to look at the world a little differently.
Alithea loves her stories, but she tells her audiences that all stories—including those associated with faith—are eventually overtaken by science. The better we understand how the world works, the more our own cultural myths become metaphors. (She would certainly lump biblical stories in with all the rest, naturally.)
But Alithea’s experiences in Istanbul would seem to expose her teachings as false. This particular fairy-tale creature has turned out to be true.
Obviously, djinn and genies are familiar figures in plenty of stories not bound by any particular culture or religious belief. (Stories about Aladdin and his magical genies is an example.) But djinn (a word like deer or fish, that is both singular and plural) have a special association with Islam.
Though most scholars believe that their legend predates the religion significantly, they’re mentioned in the Quran and thus officially part of the Islamic faith; they’re thought to be spiritual beings, but on par with humankind. They’re sometimes good, and they’re sometimes bad. And according to sources outside the Quran, they’re not always Muslim themselves. (Jewish and Christian djinn are said to be fairly indifferent to humankind in folk stories, while pagan djinn tend to be downright hostile to humans.)
We don’t know just who or what this particular djinn worships, but he insists that he’s “God-fearing.” When he tells Alithea about the restrictions on his wishes, he includes the fact that he can’t absolve sin. “I am only a djinn,” he tells her.
He tells us several stories about his previous masters, all of whom seem to have held either Islamic beliefs or a history within Islamic cultures.
His first “master” was the Queen of Sheba, to whom King Solomon paid a visit. When Alithea reminds him that the queen is said to have visited the king, the djinn tells her that he was there: He knows who visited whom. Further, the djinn leans into the Islamic understanding of the king (one that Rudyard Kipling also stressed in his Just-So Stories), that he was a powerful magician in his own right who could communicate with both djinn and ifrit (sort of a demonic creature in Islam).
Later masters were sultans, concubines or otherwise associated with the Islamic Ottoman Empire.
Alithea’s name, actually, is presumably taken from a Greek goddess of the same name (though usually spelled differently), which represented truth or disclosure. During one of her talks, the slide on the screen behind her depicts a number of gods from various cultures. We see one or two ifrit and/or creepy, spiritually tinged, creatures.
The Djinn draws Albert Einstein out of a television set. Einstein is much younger than the one on TV, but apparently aware enough of his environment to be very, very confused. We see plenty of other magic at work, too, and there’s some discussion about the power of numbers. One of Alithea’s fellow narratologists quips about embracing any irrational being, including “djinns, ghosts, aliens—whatever helps!”
The Djinn describes the Queen of Sheba as “beauty itself,” and we see quite a bit of her in the throes of sex with Solomon. (We see her breasts from the side, as well as Solomon’s exposed behind, along with lots of sexual movements.) Sheba wears quite revealing clothing elsewhere, too.
Far more nudity is present when the djinn unpacks another story—that of a guy with a predilection for very large women. This future sultan (Ibrahim) was locked in a room covered with sable for years upon years by his own mother, who attempted to protect and distract him—sending him a variety of women. His taste (we’re told) for large women grew, and we see him in his harem surrounded by mostly naked females. When a viewing window is opened and his brother looks in, Ibrahim reaches out a sticky, slimy hand in an effort to touch his much-missed sibling.
When Ibraham becomes sultan, the women come with him. Again, we see them mostly naked. And his favorite—a woman apparently named Sugar Lump—is seen walking through the palace hallways completely naked from the front. (Her massive belly, however, actually obscures her genitals.)
We see another woman, pregnant, dressed in a clingy covering that leaves little to the imagination. We’re told that an elderly man married a 12-year-old girl. The movie introduces us to both, though possibly we see them after they’ve already been married for several years. (The woman certainly looks much older than 12.) But we do see the two engaged in sex, though both are clothed.
The djinn also has sexual relations with at least two of his “masters.” We don’t see them in truly intimate relations, but do see them kiss, cuddle and hang out in bed (everything strategically covered) at various junctures.
The djinn, by the way, seems to be nude in several scenes—though the lower half of his djinn body looks almost like he’s covered in spandex. Thus, we don’t see any genitalia (or even suggestion thereof), but he does go shirtless quite a bit. We hear a great deal about concubines, many of whom wear body augmenting garb. The bottle in which the djinn is incarcerated is a bit metaphorically suggestive. We learn that Alithea’s husband, Jack, had at least one affair (which caused the disillusion of their marriage).
Another sultan becomes a renowned warrior. We see him engaged in bloody battle (and watch as a horse runs across the landscape, a massive spear stuck in its rump). It’s said that his wartime experience breaks him; and when he returns to take the Ottoman throne, it’s suggested that he could kill anyone (for any reason) at any moment. His mother tries to distract him with storytellers, but it’s suggested he kills or banishes all but one. (We watch as he shoots one with an arrow as the storyteller tries to row away.)
A woman is captured and drowned in the sea. A disturbing man/creature bars the djinn’s way. At one point, the djinn begins to crumble—perhaps the first step in vanishing completely. Alithea collapses during a symposium talk. Someone dies of natural causes.
Alithea, we learn, had a miscarriage.
One unexpected f-word. One use of the British vulgarity “bloody.”
A mother tries to keep her sultan/son perpetually drunk, for the safety of the empire. (We see the son very tipsy indeed, and he violently smashes empty liquor bottles.)
Alithea lives next to a pair of elderly sisters who seem fairly prejudiced against anyone not from their fair English isle. They can’t understand why Alithea would study other cultures or even visit foreign countries.
We are made from stories.
Our own stories—that is, our own experiences—shape who we are and who we want to be. Other people’s stories help us learn and grow. God made us to be story receptacles, really. It’s why Jesus taught us through story. And honestly, it’s why we do what we do at Plugged In. The stories we absorb through our entertainment can be incredibly powerful, shaping us and sometimes twisting us in ways we don’t even see.
In a way, the romantic core of Three Thousand Years of Longing isn’t between Alithea and the djinn, but rather between humankind and story. Just as Alithea told her audience at the outset, the stories we embrace can often be metaphors. And this screen-based story itself is indeed has a lot of metaphor in its sable folds.
As such, I can appreciate this near-hallucinogenic fairy tale; this dream-encrusted love letter to story itself.
But—leaning into the metaphor a bit more—just as we’re told that djinn can be good or bad, so can the stories we ingest. And this particular story packs plenty of problems.
First, of course, comes the nudity. Some of it is intended to be titillating. Much of it isn’t really sensual at all, but instead rather shocking. And even when we don’t see skin, we feel the film’s core eroticism in play. Three Thousand Years of Longing invokes a sense of near-immortal eros—and perhaps the idea that romantic love is humankind’s end-all, be-all source of meaning.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is not without merits. But its problems seem to outweigh its favors. And perhaps this is one bottle, or lamp, you might not want to rub.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
