Sex and secrets

Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Three Monkeys is
a complex portrait of desire, justice and
social advancement in Turkey

TURKISH DESPAIR: Three Monkeys

by CHRISTOPHER SYKES

Few cinephiles would argue that the films of multi-award-winning Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Climates, Distant) are difficult to categorize. All are painstakingly crafted, thoroughbred art-house fare to be sure. But they’re also deeply enigmatic pictures steeped in allegory, filled with challenging mise-en-scene that demands personal interpretation and draw comparisons to heavyweights like Bergman, Bresson and Béla Tarr. Pretentious (and pretty damned slow), detractors are likely to say. Poetic (and over your head), enthusiasts surely counter.

Comparatively, Ceylan’s fifth feature, Three Monkeys, for which he was awarded the best direction prize at last year’s Cannes film festival, is quite conventional. Part cautionary tale, part neo-noir melodrama, Three Monkeys revolves around an extraordinary event—a late night hit-and-run by arrogant politician Servet (Ercan Kesal)—dealt with in an even more extraordinary manner, with chauffeur Eyüp (Yavuz Bingöl) agreeing to cover up the death.

Bingöl, a lower class Turkish family man who was absent the night of the accident, is coaxed into taking the rap in exchange for a handsome payoff. As the months behind bars pass, Bingöl’s son Ismail (Rifat Sungar) and wife Hacer (Hatice Aslan) begin to deal with the consequences of their own lies and cover-ups in the patriarch’s absence.

Upon failing a university entrance exam for the second time, Sungar pleads with his mother to ask for an advance on the payoff so he can buy a used car. Apprehensive at first, Aslan eventually meets with Kesal to discuss the family’s finances (the mother still receives Bingöl’s salary, but it’s a meagre one). The seductive politician develops a sexual interest in his employee’s wife and uses his power to fulfil his urges.

The real drama unfolds when Sungar walks in on the affair, and when Aslan falls for the handsome politician despite Bingöl’s early release for good behaviour. The family members each stay mum until it becomes clear that all are well aware of their own individual collusion.

While it may read like an over-the-top sexual thriller, that’s far from the case. Immaculately shot, Three Monkeys is a masterful presentation of a family shattered by deception while trying to ascend Turkey’s financial ranks.

THREE MONKEYS OPENS THIS
FRIDAY, MAY 1