Smells Like the Fuse is Lit, Enjoy the Burn

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Main Cast: Yavuz Bingol, Hatice Aslan, Rifat Sungar, Ercan Kesal

It’s easy to see why Ceylan won best director at last year’s Cannes.  He always seems to be in complete command of each frame of his films and Three Monkeys is no different; an arresting portrait of denial eating away at an Istanbul family.  It’s not a film about action but inaction, a slow-burning and eerie journey around a trio of characters trying to hold themselves together while each is on the brink of snapping.  The thin story could be considered contrived but the daring visuals will leave a lasting impression.

Cinema Release Date: 13th February 2009

As you already know, the three wise monkeys represent the principle of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.  In Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s intensely psychological character study it’s a principle that is pushed to its very limits as the monkeys become a family in the middle of a communication crisis.  Like his previous films Distant and Climates, Ceylan takes a very measured approach to story-telling, almost painfully so, but, even though very little is said narratively, his beautifully composed shots smoulder with meaning and emotion.  Any art student will be on the edge of their seat.

The scant story is set-up in moments, with aspiring politician Servet (Kesal) hitting a pedestrian in the opening frames of the film.  He quickly phones his driver, the gruff Eyüp (Bingol), and asks him to take the fall in exchange for some much needed cash.  Over an oppressively hot summer in Istanbul, Eyüp serves his time in prison while his wife Hacer (Aslan) grows bored and their lazy son Ismail (Sungar) gets itchy for the money.

Rarely do the characters speak directly to each other but Ceylan’s camera is always on them, usually in extreme close-up, as he thrusts the audience into their lives.  At first it’s almost impenetrable but Ceylan captures the heat of the season and each frame seems to simmer, its subject trapped in sharp focus against blurred, shadowy backgrounds.  This is a family in complete isolation despite living in one of the world’s most populated cities and there’s something black and unspoken between them, an evil that’s never addressed.

Ceylan hints that the family’s problems stem from another son who died young.  In their darkest moments of solitude the family members are visited by the memory of that son, water dripping from him as if he’d just stepped out of a swimming pool.  These are truly astonishing sequences, Ceylan making them far creepier than any Hollywood jump cut simply by his amplification of sound and use of the camera’s lens to create a barely recognisable image.  Often the water runs backwards, creating a sense of otherworldliness.  The characters are haunted but not in the traditional cinematic sense and Ceylan cuts through all the exposition and reason to get straight to the rawness of their emotional state.

True, this is at the expense of the story itself and Ceylan tries to give it some sort of an arc through Hacer.  She requests the money early from Servet, although he is a loathsome, lecherous man who wants some ‘attention’ in return.  In one scene between them, Hacer’s mobile rings with a song wishing bad things to happen – another example of Ceylan avoiding dialogue to concentrate on what’s actually going on in the minds of his characters.  That Hacer later stalks and throws herself at Servet comes as a shock, seemingly there to allow Ceylan to give the film something of an ending.

However, the denouement itself, all brewing storms clouds and electricity, does bring the story full circle as Ceylan suggests that the ignorance of evil only serves to drive individuals further apart.  Just remember, it’s good to talk.

Country of Origin: Turkey
Running Time: 109 mins
Certificate: 15