Tilda Swinton: Alithea
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Quotes
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Alithea Binnie : Love is a gift. It's a gift of oneself given freely. It's not something one can ever ask for.
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Alithea Binnie : There's no story about wishing that is not a cautionary tale. None end happily. Not even the ones that are supposed to be jokes.
Genie : But you and I are the authors of this story, and we can avoid all traps.
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Genie : And there I am, left to my own oblivion, with no one to hear my voice, no one to know me, nor feel me, nor sense me. You can't imagine.
Alithea Binnie : Well, actually, I can.
Genie : Can you imagine the loneliness? How it might overwhelm?
Alithea Binnie : I can.
Alithea Binnie : We exist only if we are real to others. Do you agree?
Alithea Binnie : I do.
Genie : This, then, is our fate, Alithea. If you make no wish at all, I will be caught between worlds, invisible and alone, for all time.
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Alithea Binnie : [narrates] If there is fate, who can say? But I tell you this: in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, there are sixty-two streets, and four thousand shops. And in one of those shops, there are three rooms. In the smallest of those rooms, there was a pile of things unsorted, old and new. From the bottom of that pile, I chose a memento.
[picks up a flask]
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[from trailer]
Alithea Binnie : I do have a question. What does one do with three wishes?
Genie : You'll see.
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Alithea Binnie : I cannot, for the life of me, summon up one eligible wish. And you're asking me for three?
Genie : Is there any life in you? Are you even alive?
Alithea Binnie : You know, in some cultures, abstinence from desire means enlightenment!
Genie : Then you are a pious fool!
Alithea Binnie : If I'm content, why tempt fate?
Genie : And you're a coward!
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[Last lines]
Alithea Binnie : [narrates] He would visit from time to time, and they would grasp each vivid moment. Despite the pain of the raucous skies, he always stayed longer than he should, long after she begged him to leave. He promised to return in her lifetime, and for her, that was more than enough.
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Genie : [pulls a man from the TV] Would you like this little Albert Einstein?
Alithea Binnie : No! No, no, no. That can't be good for him. Put him back!
Genie : I could expand him. We could speak with him.
Alithea Binnie : No, put him back!
Genie : Is that a wish?
Alithea Binnie : No, it's your obligation!
[the genie sends Einstein back to the TV]
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Alithea Binnie : This is the story you've been avoiding telling me all along.
Genie : This is the story I've avoided telling even myself
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[from trailer]
Alithea Binnie : You know, I'm beginning to wish we'd never met!
[the flask cracks]
Genie : NO! DON'T SAY THAT!
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Alithea Binnie : Well, I'm beginning to think that I'm in the presence of a trickster.
Genie : That would be so much better. My work would be so much easier. But the truth is, I am just an idiot who has been extravagantly unlucky.
Alithea Binnie : Well, I have to take your word for that.
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[from trailer]
Alithea Binnie : [on the flask] I like it. Whatever it is, I'm sure it has an interesting story.
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Genie : So, what would you wish for? What is your heart's desire?
Alithea Binnie : Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I need to take this slow.
Genie : I have all the time in the world.
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Prof. Günhan : You are behaving like a child. Do you know that?
Alithea Binnie : You know, I am actually a child.
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Alithea Binnie : I thought I might grieve a loss and betrayal, but, uh, no, in fact, I was free. I was like a prisoner emerging from a dungeon into the sunlight. I expanded into the space of my own life. No, I could not wish for more.
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Alithea Binnie : I tricked us both. The moment I made that wish, I took away your power to grant it. I, more than anybody, I should have known that.
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Alithea Binnie : How can you rely on those called upon to wish?
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Genie : What was the complexion of this husband?
Alithea Binnie : His complexion? Uh, in the beginning, it was... glowing.
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Alithea Binnie : Do you know the answer to her question?
Genie : What women most desire?
Alithea Binnie : Yeah.
Genie : Do you not know? If you don't know, I cannot tell you.
Alithea Binnie : Well, surely we don't all want the same thing.
Genie : Madam, your yearnings are not at all clear to me.
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Clementine : Why would Dr. Binnie waste her time and intelligence studying the ways of others instead of upholding our own?
Fanny : Embarrassed by our British culture, are we?
Alithea Binnie : No. No, I am more likely to be embarrassed by anybody reflexively frightened of anybody different.
Clementine : What exactly are you saying?
Fanny : She's calling us bigots.
Alithea Binnie : Your words, not mine.
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Alithea Binnie : I *will* make three wishes. I will.
Genie : Before you die.
Alithea Binnie : Right now. One after the other. Ready?
Genie : Uh-huh.
Alithea Binnie : Number one, I wish your headache were gone. Number two, I wish for a sip of this tea. And finally, I wish for another one of those.
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Alithea Binnie : I know all the stories there are about trickster Djinn, and the ways in which they manipulate wishing to their own ends.
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Alithea Binnie : Who was she?
Genie : Sheba.
Alithea Binnie : The queen of Sheba?
Genie : She was my kin.
Alithea Binnie : She was a djinn?
Genie : Her mother was a Djinn.
Alithea Binnie : Is that possible?
Genie : There are laws that allow the union of djinn and mortals, but they cannot produce an immortal scion the way a donkey and a horse can only produce a seedless mule.
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[first lines]
Alithea Binnie : [narrating] My name is Alithea. My story is true. You're more likely to believe me, however, if I tell it as a fairy tale. So, once upon a time when humans hurtled across the sky on metal wings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea, when they held in their hands glass tiles that could coax love songs from the air, there was a woman, adequately happy and alone. Alone by choice.
Alithea Binnie : Happy because she was independent, living off the exercise of her scholarly mind. Her business was story. She was a narratologist, who sought to find the truths common to all the stories of humankind. To this end, once or twice a year, she ventured to strange lands. To China, the South Seas, and the timeless cities of the Levant, where her kind gathered to tell stories about stories.
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Genie : I might have become more, but for Solomon.
Alithea Binnie : King Solomon?
Genie : Blessed be his memory. He came from across the deserts to woo her.
Alithea Binnie : Didn't she go to him?
Genie : No. Never.
Alithea Binnie : But it's in all the holy books. All the stories and the paintings. And Handel wrote music about it.
Genie : Madam, I was there. Solomon came to her.
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Alithea Binnie : So you are electromagnetic?
Genie : As you are dust, I am made of subtle fire.
