With Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015, George Miller reaffirmed himself as one of our greatest living genre directors, a visual dynamo capable of giving character and meaning to his action sequences. It’s been seven years since road of fury roared through theaters, and while many fans were focused on developing its in-universe follow-up, the prequel film FuriosaMiller also worked hard on another project.
From a story by AS Byatt, Three thousand years of nostalgia marks Miller’s return to fantasy film after first delving into the genre with The Witches of Eastwick 35 years ago. The film tells the story of a lonely scholar named Alithea (Tilda Swinton), who arrives in Istanbul for a conference and finds herself in the presence of a millennial Djinn (Idris Elba). The Djinn offers him three wishes, after which he will gain his freedom, but of course Alithea is an academic, and she doesn’t necessarily believe in the Djinn’s gifts – letting him regale her with stories of her long life in an effort. to convince her.
A brief teaser released on Wednesday revealed glimpses of Miller’s full visual style at work in the film, and now the full trailer has arrived to give us an even bigger taste of what’s to come.
Check it out below:
Right away, the sense of visual ambition is on full display as Miller plays up the contrast between the tightly controlled world of Alithea and the brightly colored kinetic past set in place by the Djinn. There’s also a remarkable game at work in the images, suggesting something far more comedic than road of fury (which had its laughs, of course), and a movie more willing to dive into interesting tangents and explorations.
Then, of course, there’s the heart of the piece, which hints at a film that’s as much about storytelling as it is about a single story. Alithea and the Djinn not only navigate their relationship with each other, but how a single wish could change the course of both of their stories. It’s a fascinating way to approach the film, and it seems certain to be one of the must-see genre efforts of 2022.
Three thousand years of nostalgia celebrated its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival today and will arrive in theaters on August 31.
Looking for more fantasy action? Check out the best Peacock fantasy movies right now.
