Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film making style is mostly categorized as ‘high art’ making him a Cannes favorite and an acquired taste. His Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun) was one of the PIFF 2009 movies that I didn’t like then but think about even now. I have now finalized one interpretation. It is amazing how much Ceylan conveyed with three brooding characters and few dialogues, and this is only one interpretation.
A father, a mother and a son are the three monkeys. There may have been one or at most two shots in which all three of them are seen together. Their home is so silent that the rumble of a distant steamer sailing on the adjacent sea can be heard. They rarely speak and when they do one can’t help feeling that they are avoiding something.
A politician running for an upcoming election runs over and kills a pedestrian one early morning. He makes a deal with his driver, the father, to take the blame in exchange for his regular salary and a lump sum on his release. The father readily accepts.
The son can’t concentrate on studies, fails the college entrance again, is bored, and gets into fights. He once hallucinates of his dead brother – a small boy bruised all over and dripping water/oil/honey. The family has never been the same since the boy’s death, never openly discussed their pain. Why not?
The mother does not hallucinate about the small boy. She has her own job, but is worried about her bored young son and is perhaps even threatened by his presence. It may be because of the regular maternal reasons or because she sees herself being forced to talk to him openly or even because she fears his youth and her own suppressed desires. So she gives in to the son’s plan to become a school van driver, seeks monetary help from the politician, and in the process begins an affair with the politician. The son gets wind about the affair but says nothing.
The father senses that there is something fishy, and pointedly doubts his wife’s fidelity after getting released from the prison. Along with his well-known temper, he displays a more violent side when he beats her up. I now think the father accidentally killed the small boy in one of his previous violent outbursts. That is the reason why he too hallucinates of the small boy, the reason why he accepted to take his master’s punishment to cure his own guilt, the reason why he visited the dead boy’s grave along with the son on his release from the prison. The son knows but says nothing.
The mother blinded by her desire begs the politician to take her away as his own. The son sees this, kills the politician, and finally says one truth. The father makes a deal with a waiter of the Irani shop in the neighborhood, to take his son’s blame in exchange for his regular salary and a lump sum on his release.
The father killed the small boy. The mother killed the marriage. The son killed the politician. Scores level. Are they free to start over? Are they free to drift apart?
Image Source: Amazon
Amazon Ads: