Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2009)

I wrote this short advanced review of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys, Turkey's submission for the Oscars, for The Film Experience. When the film opens wide, I might post a longer review, but we'll see. These are my thoughts in a nutshell. I thought I'd post it here rather than point you over there.

by James Hansen

With the 9-film shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film announced, let us all open our ears to the Annual Critics Who Cry “Snub!” While you can typically count me in that group, there are only a couple films that people are really upset about being snubbed (Gomorrah, Captain Abu Raed...but really, did anyone really expect Jordan to get a nomination the first year it submits?) unlike last years full-blown snub debacle (4 Months, Edge of Heaven, I Just Didn’t Do It, The Orphanage, Persepolis, Silent Light, Taxidermia, XXY...none of which even made the shortlist!) in favor of the weakest set of foreign film nominees in a decade.

Maybe the new rules are doing some good. The inclusion of Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest feature Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun) proves, if nothing else, that the committee is getting a little more daring in their choices and, at long last, not afraid to reject generic, period (war) dramas. Turkey has never been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and, while Ceylan’s strongest feature Distant (Uzak) was submitted for Oscar consideration in 2003 and failed to clinch the nomination, Three Monkeys is a touch more accessible for Oscar voters and may provide Turkey and Ceylan the nomination they deserve.


In Three Monkeys, Ceylan’s assured direction maintains the somber, quiet, and brooding tone illustrated so effectively in Distant and Climates; however, Three Monkeys features a more straight forward narrative, which makes it a great introduction to Ceylan’s work even though its narrative attributes end up being its major weakness. After Servet, a wealthy politician, accidentally kills a pedestrian, he calls his lower class driver Eyüp to take the fall in exchange for a large sum of money for him and his family when he gets out. So begins his family’s attempts to cover up the truth of their situation, which leads to the disconnection and isolation that comes with the acceptance of, and refusal to recognize, their deception.

Ceylan’s direction is as sure handed as ever, which makes Three Monkeys a technical marvel. Ceylan has an acute sense for tone and mood, similar to Hungarian master Bela Tarr, that establishes the fascinating contradiction of claustrophobic isolation. But, just as Tarr’s The Man From London wanders off course with its dedication to narrative, Three Monkeys' lugubrious feel fails to completely mesh with its highly emotional melodramatic narrative. The material packs a punch of its own, albeit a familiar one, but Ceylan’s perfectly muted pitch, so focused on repression and interiority, highlights how emotionally vacant the bigger dramatic moments are in comparison to the powerful subtelties that enlivened the best parts of Three Monkeys and Ceylan's previous films.

Three Monkeys features sequences as strong as anything Ceylan has done, but falls short of the beauty and power seen in Distant and Climates. At the same time, it is the kind of gutsy “art house” foreign film that always deserves wider recognition and is consistently snubbed by Oscar voters. I’m still skeptical it will crack the final five (it’s less commercial than Oscar ever goes for and Ceylan is a young director who could win down the road) but, despite its faults, I’ll be rooting for Three Monkeys all the way.

B
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Reviews In Brief: "The Edge of Heaven" (Fatih Akin, 2008)

It is a rare occurrence for me to leave a movie theater and to immediately be ecstatically ready to return to the same film for a second viewing. This, however, is exactly the case for Fatih Akin’s latest film The Edge of Heaven. Methodically deliberate for every second of its draining 122 minutes, The Edge of Heaven refuses to rush its multi-layered, cross cultural narrative, which all builds to a contemplative final moment of rapturous beauty. Its subdued atmosphere and patient tone, similar to that of Akin's earlier feature Head-On (2005) is surprising for a film that sounds so elaborate, far reaching, and ambitious (as that has seemingly become a negative aspect) yet it is precisely this balance that makes The Edge of Heaven so powerfully effective.

Led by an array of rock solid performances, crisp direction, and an ingenious screenplay (which won the Best Screenplay award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival), Akin and his colleagues have crafted an subtly intense experience reflecting the difficult relationship between Turkey and Germany. Yet The Edge of Heaven reaches beyond this culturally specific target and has mass appeal to any individual or group that is waiting for their ship to come in. Without a doubt, The Edge of Heaven is one of the best film you will see this year.

by James Hansen


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