Three Monkeys

First, let’s be clear: Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a major talent, one of the best you’ll find on the art-house circuit. If you haven’t already done so, you should check out Distant (AKA Uzak, 2002) and Climates (2006).

Now, let’s be frank: Three Monkeys is a significant shift towards the mainstream, and, I’m afraid, a mis-step. This is not a universal opinion, not by a long way. In fact Ceylan won the best director prize at Cannes last year. So what do I know?

Ceylan hasn’t gone in much for narrative before, but Three Monkeys is practically a melodrama, albeit a melodrama which omits most of the action. It begins with a hit and run traffic accident (we hear, but don’t see it). Turns out the man who fell asleep at the wheel is a politician and a wealthy man – wealthy enough that he convinces his driver to take the rap and face some jail time. At home, as the months drag by, the driver’s wife becomes concerned by the company their teenage son is keeping. Frustrated, the boy begs her to spend some of the pay-off to buy a car. In order to do so, she must ask the politician for an advance. One advance leads to another, and he seduces her. The boy finds out. Soon the driver-husband-father is released from prison, and suspicious of everyone…

As many critics have noted, the situation is pregnant with the threat of film noir. You could imagine the scenario in black and white, with Lana Turner and John Garfield. Except that it takes on an extra edge in the context of Turkey’s patriarchal society, where the woman’s adultery is an affront to both son and husband. (It’s worth noting the script originated with Ceylan’s wife, Ebru.)

Ceylan shoots in color, on a digital camera, but he’s definitely gone for a more expressionist aesthetic this time. The look is glowering and oppressive. He cuts more here than he has in the past. Even so, the style will probably still seem oblique and affected to the man off the street. In a Ceylan film what is off-camera is often as important as what is in the shot.

He’s also very conscious of sound. There is a remarkable sequence here where the movie seems on the verge of doing an about face and turning into a ghost story.

These kind of poetic, expressive touches transcend the not very interesting characters and schematic plotting. The title, as you might have guessed, refers to the blind, deaf and dumb monkeys in certain Asian traditions – i.e. the family’s failure to communicate honestly – and it’s indicative of the narrow way Ceylan sees these people. Or rather, the narrow way the story forces them to behave. One character’s descent into romantic obsession struck me as particularly hollow.

Of course, there is a sense of moral weight to the decisions these various unhappy people take. But it would carry more weight still if we truly believed in their actions.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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