I saw two movies today so far: the Japanese movie Achilles and the Tortoise by Takeshi Kitano and the Turkish film Three Monkeys by Nuri Ceylan.
Achilles and the Tortoise is a riches to rags tale of a child who was made to believe that he is a world class painter. It can be divided into two parts. The childhood of the protagonist in which picture postcard frames make a procession and his adulthood which is hilariously sarcastic. He is born to a business magnet who has all the wealth and associated power at his disposal. Because of his father’s wealth everybody praises the boy’s talent. Soon the business collapses and his father and stepmother commit suicide. For a brief while he stays with one of his uncles, who is reluctant to accept him. Then later he was sent to an orphanage.
He sticks on to painting throughout his life. But his paintings are never accepted. He works in a press, attends an art school, and in between marries. His wife is quite supportive of his painting activities. The second half of the movie is filled with a number of humorous incidents, mainly exposing the hypocrisy in the world of elitist arts. One of the characters says: “If you give a Picasso and a bowl of rice to an impoverished man in Africa, he will take the bowl… Art is one big fake.”
Three Monkeys is a tense, out and out art house movie – and a fantastic one at that. It tells, or rather makes us find out, the story of a man, his wife, and their son. The man has agreed to own a crime committed by an influential politician. He will get a large sum after his jail term. Meanwhile his wife starts an affair with the politician. The son finds out the affair. After he was released from jail, the man also becomes suspicious. The film reaches the boiling point when somebody kills the politician.
More than the story, the kind of tense atmosphere it creates is the most notable aspect. The tension between all the character – father and son, mother and son, and the man and his wife – is maintained throughout the movie. The visuals stealthily convey the inner feelings of the characters.
Next I am going to watch the Iranian film Song of the Sparrows by Majid Majidi in Remya Theatre.
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