While Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film, Three Monkeys (2008) may seem to be a unique choice for a Western viewer, the utilisation of melodramatic genre conventions captures the imaginations of people around the world, while authentically communicating nationally specific social, political, and historical issues. This is a perfect example of how genre can bring the world together as an audience, and spark conversations and reflections.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film, Three Monkeys (2008) successfully utilises genre in order to communicate national concerns of Turkey. In a melodrama film, there are three key plot features: a provocation, being what causes the villain to practice evil; pangs, being the pain experienced by the ‘good’ characters; and penalty, where the villain is brought to justice in the end. Also, as it is a family melodrama, it is concerned with issues of belonging and the nature of relationships. Through incorporating a variety of artistic film techniques to create subtle imagery and symbolism, Ceylan was able to represent and explore Turkish social, political, and historical issues. The selection of genre is also significant. The characteristic qualities of melodramas are universal and familiar to people all over the world. This recognition creates a level of simultaneity between audiences and the film thus, by using these conventions; Ceylan is able to transcend cultural barriers and access an international audience.
Provocation is an important element of melodrama. This can be defined as being “the initial cause for setting the action in motion; very often it is the jealously or greed of a wicked character.” (Akov, C. (2012)) In Three Monkeys however, the audience is deliberately deprived of this important information. This is accomplished by omitting the ‘cause’ and only exhibiting the ‘effect’. While the film contains extreme melodramatic events such as Servet’s car accident, Servet’s and Hacer’s affair or Ismail’s murder of Servet, the audience does not see them happening. What they do see is the aftermath of these events. Continuity shots are also used throughout in order to hide events from view. An example of this is when the police arrived at Hacer’s door in order to question her about Servet’s murder. As she opens the door, the camera cuts to the police station. As the audience is not shown or told the cause, there is room left for personal interpretation. If considered in relation to Turkish history, the film editor is like the government responsible for censorship. The audience is positioned as the Turkish citizens who in a similar way can only experience the ramifications of the historical events that are concealed from the national conscience. The continuity shots are also used to manipulate time for example, in the scene depicting Hacer’s first meeting with Servet, the camera cuts from turning around to see she has left to a point of view shot looking out the window as she crosses the road and then to a shot of him pulling up in front of her in his car. This technique, even when used to skip past seemingly meaningless action like Servet’s full journey from the office to Hacer creates the feeling that the audience has missed something. The subtleness of this omission portrays the censoring editor as almost sneaky, and calls the audience to actively pay attention to the time progression so they do not miss more important narrative details.
In Three Monkeys, the pangs of sadness experienced by the characters are analogous to the melodramatic genre. Being a family melodrama, the instigator for their anguish is the death of Eyup’s young son. At first glance, this tragedy is the cause of the character’s struggles however; the main problem is their conscious attempt to ‘forget’ all unfavourable past events. This is much like how Turkey attempted to disremember there past crimes of Armenian genocide through censorship of history. This is implied in the film’s title: Three Monkeys, which alludes to the well-known Japanese proverb of the ‘Three Wise Monkeys’. “Mizaru, covering his eyes, sees no evil. Kikazaru, covering his ears, hears no evil. Iwazaru, covering his mouth, speaks no evil. Together the three embody the proverbial principle to “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.”” (Cassaro, R. (2015)). The attitude that is illustrated in the proverb is that if a person actively avoids evil, they would be able to escape wickedness infecting their thoughts and actions. This belief has the opposite effect on the characters that are clearly driven by it. Denying evil poisons the internal world of their psyche and makes maintaining meaningful relationships impossible. The deceased son in the film becomes a signifier for the past hardships faced by Eyup’s family. He functions as the ‘elephant in the room’ and is never acknowledged or discussed by his family, even when Ismail and Eyup visited his grave. This lack of communication (i.e. ‘speak no evil’) about the son deprives the characters of the ability to speak about anything effectively. In many cases, they answer a question with a question for example, “ ‘what did you say?’ / ‘What did you think I said?’ or ‘Well?’ / ‘Well, what?’” (Suner, A. (2011)) This tendency to avoid directly answering questions gives the characters an air of defensiveness, as if they had something to hide; this isolates them from one another. The son is also not visually acknowledged. When visiting Ismail and later Eyup, Ismail hides his face until his younger brother leaves the room. Eyup refuses to look at him when he comes and hugs him. This “see no evil” tendency leads to increased chaos later on. Eyup sees Hacer on the balcony, possibly about to commit suicide. He however does not act and stops to contemplate what he must do. Unable to make sense of it, he ultimately looks away and tries to disconnect himself from the spectacle. This situation is similar to the situation in Turkey where there were bound to be many witnesses to their past crimes but because these people turned a blind eye to the truth, the injustices continued. The concept of “Hear no evil” is also evident in the film. Using psychoanalytic theory, Hacer begins her affair in order to satisfy her ‘id'. This is the instinctual part of human nature, and is instantly satisfied when one’s physical desires are met. Hacer does this by having sex with Servet. However, in order to find a sense of personal fulfilment in this way, Hacer must choose not to ‘hear’ the two other dimensions of her nature, these being her ‘ego’ and her ‘superego’. The ‘ego’ is concerned with restricting the ‘id’ in terms of what is socially acceptable; the ‘superego’ does this on the basis of morality. In relation to national context, Hacer’s deliberate choice not to listen is also representative of Turkey’s reluctance to acknowledge the truth. As a result, a state of national stability and similarly, a strong ‘nuclear’ family bond are both impossible to reach and maintain.
In Three Monkeys, as in a melodrama, the wrongdoers receive penalty and are brought to justice in the end. Penalty however becomes a major preoccupation of the film and is avoided in a way similar to the nation of Turkey following their acts of Armenian genocide. They had attempted to deny the occurrence of their crimes by “… find[ing] scapegoats to blame for what was said to be only a security measure that had gone awry due to unscrupulous officials, Kurds, and common criminals.” (Smith, R. (2015)). The film begins and ends with similar situations to this: Servet convinces Eyup to take the blame for the car crash he caused and later Eyup finds a boy to be punished for his son murdering Servet. The cyclical structure of the narrative emphasises that the instinctual drive to handover responsibility to another person infects the entire world of the film. The fact that Eyup had already been on the receiving end of this injustice makes him the least likely person to do this to someone else. When he does, it is made clear that the characters lack empathy for others, a quality that would make living with the knowledge they have committed this crime unbearable. The motives of Servet and Eyup emulate those of the Turkish nation in censoring their horrific crime from history. Servet, a businessman who is a candidate in an upcoming election is most worried about his political reputation. This is much like the way Turkey was concerned about their international standing and how they would be perceived and judged by other countries. Eyup acts to protect his son. In this instance, the boy he finds to be his ‘scapegoat’ is very much like the minorities (“…kurds, and common criminals”) that were used by Turkey in order to protect the people part of the dominant mainstream; which are manifested in the film as Eyup’s family. In melodrama films, “Social issues of the day could be played out between the virtuous hero or heroine and the evil villain. The moral leanings of the characters were always either good, bad, or foolish” (Kirk, D. (2014)). Although Three Monkeys does not have clearly defined heroes and villains, it is clear that characters who have avoided retribution for their offences are in the wrong. Servet’s death in the end represents a restoration of moral balance as he is brought to justice. Because his actions were replicated and worsened by Eyup as he is covering for a murder rather than an accident, his punishment is bound to also come about and perhaps be even more severe. The storm in the very end symbolises the cycle and how the suffering Eyup had endured in the film was simply ‘the calm before the storm’.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film Three Monkeys (2008) successfully utilises genre in order to communicate national concerns of Turkey. In a melodrama film, there are three key plot features: a provocation, being what causes the villain to practice evil; pangs, being the pain experienced by the ‘good’ characters and penalty, where the villain is brought to justice in the end. Also, as it is a family melodrama, it is concerned with issues of belonging and the nature of relationships. Through incorporating a variety of artistic film techniques to create subtle imagery and symbolism, Ceylan was able to represent and explore Turkish social, political and historical issues.
References:
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