Better than a close-up

FILM REVIEW

Cannes winner Three Monkeys releases in India this weekend.

The quirky symbols of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”, the three monkeys — in the Indian context reminiscent of Gandhian days — find the spotlight in this Turkish film, released at PVR cinemas this weekend. Three Monkeys got the capable Nuri Bilge Ceylan the “best director” award at Cannes this year, and with good reason: despite a banal storyline, this dark family drama is entirely a director’s film.

Local politician’s chauffeur Eyüp (Yavuz Bingöl) has to leave his family to spend nine months in jail for an offence his boss committed, in return for a lump sum at the end of the sentence. His wife, Hacer (Hatice Aslan), struggling between a lonely life by the sea and pulling up their disillusioned young son Ismail (Ahmet Rifat Sungar), yields to the charms of her husband’s politico boss, Servet (Ercan Kesal), who is, predictably, a man more selfish than compassionate. It’s all downhill for Hacer from there on.

While she drowns in the misery of a doomed affair and a suspicious, rebellious son, her husband Eyüp returns from jail to find that while everything seems on the surface more or less the way he had left it, much has changed. However, like the other characters in the film, he is not willing to dig up the dirt beneath the surface.

Says director Ceylan, “I think we do it in life, also, many times — every one of us. We play ‘three monkeys’.” Multiple layers in this film express this belief. It meanders through circumstances, sensibilities and reactions that might sometimes seem out of place, yet find a sense of validation.

With competent performances, there is an intense, violent note maintained in the film. Silences are rife with tension, and the recurrent roar of passing trains shakes the strange comfort zone that unsettles the house. The son Ismail, despite seeming directionless, stands out for being the only one who sees the need to face the situation, and in many ways it is a very lonely ride for him.

The beauty of Three Monkeys lies in the way it has been shot, the camera saying more than the characters, the stark lighting revealing more than the screenplay. A scene that will stay with you is the moment of helplessness and infatuation in which Hacer goes to meet Servet to beg him not to leave her, clinging to his legs while the waves crash on the rocks close by. The entire scene is caught in a blurry, extreme long shot, and not once do you see the despair on Hacer’s face, or the disgust on Servet’s, but the angle and the few words spoken build tension better than any close-up could have captured.

Even in a seemingly hopeless situation, life comes full circle, and the circle of “evil”, in particular, rolls on. In that, perhaps, if not through communication, the characters move on from what they will leave behind, brushed under the carpet.