Hear, Speak, See no evil...

Screening of “international” cinema — which would otherwise have never seen the light of day in the country — is moulding a cocoon that seem ready to take beautiful wings thanks to an array of player in the cinematic circles to propel and widen viewer perspectives on all things cinema. And riding on hat wave comes Palme d’Or nominee at the Cannes Film Festival, Three Monkeys directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan from Turkey. The family drama that hit cinemas across Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore on September 19, has been running to a great tilt since then. “I think we do it in life, also, many times — every one of us. We play “three monkeys”: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” The director says about his film.
Three Monkeys was officially selected for competition at the 2008 Festival de Cannes, and went on to win the Best Director Award.
Noted for his short films and having won multiple awards, his works include his first short film Koza which was screened at the Festival de Cannes in 1995. He received several awards with his debut feature Kasaba in 1997 and his third feature Uzak in 2002 was similarly feted with awards, including the Grand Jury Prize and the Best Actor Prize at Cannes.
“It has always astonished me to see, in the human soul, the co-existence of the power to rule and the potential to forgive — the interest in the most holy and that of the lowest banality, and love and hate. For this reason, dealing with the qualities of our inner world which cannot be formulated rationally and trying to comprehend it, has always been the foremost reason for me in making films,” Ceylan says.
His recent venture Three Monkeys brings out the adversity faced by a family that suffers from a major communication breakdown during their struggle to get through the hardships. In order to avoid responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth, not to see, hear or talk about it, but does playing “Three Monkeys” invalidate the truth? “This film aims to present that kind of emotional and psychological situation together with a plot loaded with the violence of complicated events evolving between four main characters. We have tried to dramatise the abstract thoughts, beliefs and conceptual conflicts which deeply engage our minds by personifying them in these characters,” Ceylan responds. Three Monkeys PVR is screening at PVR cinemas across Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.