What not is there in a name?

do not be under the impression that i am misquoting any famous one liners! I am just sharing a few of my thoughts! what sparked off these thoughts nothing much but the titles of two films that i happened to see not long ago! One is Samira Makhmalbaf's "Two Legged Horse" and the other Niri Bilge Ceylan's "Three Monkeys". So what is in these names and what has it got to do with these films? It is the way the politics in relationships are portrayed.

Set in Afghanistan "Two legged Horse" opens and closes on a scene where a number of children rush out of sewer pipes at the "A dollar a day " bid of an old man. Giah an orphan who takes up this job of looking after a rich man's son who is severely crippled. He is the one who carries this boy around. But gradually acting to the whims of the young master who is also his age Giah is transformed into a horse literally with a head made out for him. Taking victimisation to a new dimension this powerful yet evocative film gives a brutally honest picture of Afghan Children are forced to lose their childhood and even their identity as a human being.

At another level is the story of a family of three. Taking upon himself the blame of his master Eyup goes to prison with promise of financial help from Servet, a wealthy Politician. this act to hide a subterfuge goes on to much darker deceits. His wife gets involved with Servet and caught between these is Ismail, their son. In their attempts to keep the family and run it well what is chosen is an act of silence and blindness! In the "Three Monkeys", the wife , husband and their son exchanges the roles of the monkeys who are blind, dumb and deaf! The apparent politics is hinted at in both the films through the dialogues.

In "Two Legged Horse", As an after school activities the boys have a race of their donkeys and the rich boys donkey is Giah who is willing to win it as the price is an ice cream. But being a child he could not do so and at this moment the boy explains his loss thus :"My Donkey has only two legs!" In another instance we find Giah taking the boy to urinate and here also the master mercilessly remarks that with his piss " I wrote your name, Donkey". at one level it is the horrible nuances of a master slave relationship and on the other hand it is an indication of the blurring boundaries between humanity and bestiality, between being civilized and being barbaric.

"Do we have anyone else?" Asks the father to the distraught son when he visits him in jail in " Three Monkeys". The mother being the tress passer is cleared communicated through the frames where she is always in the shadows. The dead son who is an invisible link between the three comes to comfort only the father and the son. A film ruled by silence , the darkness in the frames and the looming of the dark clouds forms a leit motif capturing the hidden dimension in the relationship of the three! In both films it the way the power in the equations of relationships is poignantly captured by the hint of animal imageries. Be it in the names used or the way people are reduced to the roles of animals in this struggle of life, these show the degradation of human values and the importance of relationships!

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" , but when it comes to humans it is by any other name that they will be recognised! It is a mere a title of a film that speak such volumes!