Üç Arkadas

The background music for this film are all American pop instrumental hits of the 1950's. As the opening credits roll, "Ruby" is heard, as recorded by (I think) Les Baxter, with the haunting harmonica solo. I wondered how the picture would play out given this peculiar start.

Turns out it was not a special picture, just a nice story about some nice poor people in contemporary Istanbul. Briefly, three men live in an abandoned building and try to eke out a living by pooling their meagre resources. They come upon a lonely blind girl one night, befriend her, and take her in as their guest, pretending they are rich. They learn that 800 lira will cure her blindness. One of the three decides to get the money by any means necessary, because he has fallen in love with her.

"Three Friends" is a sweet story but has the feel of a children's movie, and plot holes and non-sequiturs abound. Children would not ask questions, but grown-ups will be perplexed. They will also notice the startlingly amateurish acting jobs contained in the film, with the exception of Fikret Hakan, who I learned was something of a Turkish matinée idol back in the day. They may also notice the poor directing and the uneven photography. All of this made my rating a mediocre 5, but, after all, it should be classified as a kid's picture - it is a winning, heartwarming movie and they won't notice the flaws.

Remember the times when movies are made with stars. Remember the times when there is no story to tell, if there is no star to play it. It feels so sad that oldies are archaic. Like a golden statuette, you can't be part of its drama any more, no matter how close you look you hold and you feel it.

Three Friends is one of those oldies which belong to bygone days, when the movies were only following one side of a story, very straightforwardly. You'd easily know who the protagonist and antagonist are. But you can never see a scene where protagonist is not present. There is no other story happening in the background with side characters or with the antagonist. There is only one plot, but with many different themes that is enriched: Heroic themes, love themes, friendship, innocence. It's fully a drama.

Because there has been a revision in 1971 of the same movie played by different actors, shot by the same director onto the same script, you can easily tell how the modern cinema has evolved by time. Particularly this is a story of three poor friends who are helping out a blind vagabond girl by sharing their food and home with her. In the similar setting of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights with lots of inspirations from the Tokyo Story and Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Three Friends is a highly emotional social drama which focus is on friendship and innocence. Highly recommended for all lovers of classic drama movies.