Envisioning a New Future in “Three Monkeys”
As the 2009 Cannes Film Festival gets underway, I felt a need to explore and address some of the highly acclaimed films from Cannes last year.
“Three Monkeys”, a dark fable of loss and rupturing that can POSSIBLY be the start of redemption, from Turkey’s famed auteur, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, won the Best Director award at Cannes last year.
The film is gorgeously photographed with searing landscapes of sea, urban decay and modern living. The color scheme is faded, almost lacking color, as indeed a lack of vitality has seeped out of the lives of our three main protagonists: a chauffer, his apparently stable, beautiful wife, and post-college son who is bored, searching for direction.
The movie begins with a car accident, hauntingly, eerily photographed. The driver, a rich politician kills a pedestrian on a lonely rural road, flees, and convinces his chauffer (who was not in the car at the time) to take the prison rap for him in exchange for money.
And so starts a medley of change, for this politician is like a lighthouse (depicted symbolically by Ceylan right at the start of the movie), who ends up shining a light on the hidden secrets and desires of the 3 monkeys that comprise an apparently happy family, but instead have been “seeing no evil, hearing no evil”, hiding away reality in the dark, suffused colorlessness of everyday life.
While the chauffer is in prison, his wife ends up having an affair with the politician, and we begin to see the false life she has been trapped in with a man she does not love. The chauffer himself ends up not being the benevolent person we expected him to be in the beginning of the movie, and the son moves to express a deep rage within himself that had been hidden till the politician-driven chain of events take over.
This film is an important parable for now. As so many events in the world are forcing changes for many, regarding money, property, relationships, vocational aspirations, this is like the politician, the lighthouse, shining a light on those aspects of your life that are no longer working, that it is now time to change for you to grow internally and blossom into the life that will truly make you happy.
It is your choice whether you embrace change with joy or with fear. At the end of the movie, the 3 protagonists seem to still be mired in fear. But the movie ends with a panoramic view of a thunderstorm, delivering rain on the chauffer in a beautifully photographed scene on top on a roof, facing the water. Perhaps spiritual redemption is around the corner, if only we will open our eyes.
A 40th Birthday Celebration Under the Stars in South Beach
Amidst the swirling seas of the Altantic, nestled within the arms of “Wish” restaurant in South Beach, I enjoyed and celebrated my existence, wishing for an exciting future and knowing that it will indeed come to pass.
There is something about being on the ocean that is relaxing, energizing and ultimately self-motivating (picture 1).
The birthday food celebration at Wish included: P.’s starter of lobster ravioli with a cardomon-yuzu foam (picture 2), which he really enjoyed. My appetizer of fois gras was unusual in that it was paired with white chocoloate (picture 3)! It took a little getting used to, but ultimately I enjoyed it. My main was a branzino with a fregole of olives, pine nuts and frutti di mare (picture 4). P. ate a salmon dish with risotto and mushrooms (picture 5). My birthday dessert was a chocoloate molten cake with caramel ice cream (picture 6). P. ate a trio of sorbets (picture 7).
Onwards and upwards - once more unto the breach!