ChikPapa Very disappointed :(

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

by_all Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys takes you to Istanbul suburbs to tell you a story about the common vices of humanity: deception and self-deception. Have you ever altered the truth to be able to maintain your order? Simply, played three monkeys? Ignored the fact? Composed of three members, the underprivileged family in this film has no one else in their lives to depend on: the father Eyüp (Yavuz Bingöl), driver of a politician, reserved; the mother Hacer (Hatice Aslan), housewife living as if she can break into pieces anytime; and the son İsmail (Rıfat Sungar), not being able to pass the common university entry exam, fooling around being juvenile and far from being a hope for the family. Yet their established balance is lost when the politician hits a pedestrian in a quiet street and asks Eyüp to take the blame for him in return of good cash. Eyüp accepts; he will be taking a great amount of money and will only serve less than a year in the prison, and when he gets out, he will continue working as his driver again. With the closure of eyes to the first lie, others follow. The son "sees" things that he would not tell, the mom does things she would not talk about. There are also bigger things that are not talked about, ghosts of the past. After everything is done, how could they stay together?Considering Tarkovsky has a great deal of influence on Ceylan, this film is indeed not for blockbuster audiences. It has no non-diegetic music, no long dialogues and no fast camera movements. The movie requires the viewer's full attention and participation for revealing itself. But once you are in, it takes you to a great journey and tells you all about the human, incapable or afraid of change. Real change. Not deceptions. You can image that these types of films works on various levels, that's what makes them great. So, let's cut short, for not influencing your thoughts when provoked by the story. Besides from the story and the acting, do I need to mention the film's visuals, or cinematography? Which brought Ceylan the Best Director Award in 2008 Cannes Film Festival?

Mike B There are long longeurs of people brooding that go on forever. Many scenes seem to play-out in slow-motion depression. The plot is basic enough - a politician swindles his driver to take the fall for a fatal accident. The driver goes to jail – the drivers' wife falls for the politician, the son of the driver finds out about his mother and when the driver is released from jail he suspects that not all is kosher. The family dissolves into a full blown depression and they speak in monosyllables to each other. There is even some science fiction when a long dead son starts miraculously appearing. I didn't quite get this part but it was pretty eerie!Really it's not that there is no empathy – but everything is so dreary that it just weighs you down. One wonders if there is any point to it all – I didn't see any. It's like an old Ingmar Bergman that has been transported to Turkey.

amrassinefil A family is dislocated when small failings become extravagant lies. The film opens as a wealthy businessman, Servet, running a campaign for the upcoming election, is driving in his car alone and sleepy, struggling to keep his eyes open. Seconds later he hits and kills a pedestrian in the middle of the road. Servet panics when another car with a couple inside approaches. He sneaks away. Eyüp, a man living in a slum at Yedikule neighborhood in İstanbul, with his wife and only son, is the driver of Servet. He wakes up in the middle of the night with his cell phone ringing. It's his boss, telling Eyüp to meet him immediately. Shivering in shock, Servet explains the current events to his driver. His excuse is if the fatal accident comes out in press it would terminate his political career, so he proposes Eyüp to take over the penalty and stay in prison for a brief period of time in exchange for a lump sum payment upon his release, whilst still paying his salary to his family so they can get by. Eyüp accepts the deal. An unspecified time passes, summer arrives, and Eyüp's son İsmail fails to enter college again. His mother, Hacer, who works in the catering division of a factory, starts worrying about her son after unpleasant events, and tries to convince him to get a job. İsmail suggests driving children between home and school but of course they don't have any financial source for this kind of an enterprise. İsmail asks his mother to request an advance payment from Servet without consulting Eyüp. Hacer meets with Servet, in his office after the election (which he lost), and requests the money. After Hacer leaves the office and starts waiting for a bus at the stop Servet persuades Hacer to accept a lift from him back to her home. More unspecified time passes, and İsmail intends to visit his father. Things take a poor turn when he finds his mother having an affair with Servet. İsmail stands passive. After serving nine months in prison, Eyüp is released. He senses things are "a little peculiar" inside his home. Hacer is in love with Servet and insists on maintaining their affair. Servet disagrees. That night, Hacer and Eyüp are invited to the police station and informed that Servet has been murdered. Police officers interrogate the two and Eyüp finds out that Hacer was cheating on him. He denies knowing anything about it. İsmail confesses to his mother that he murdered Servet. Eyüp calms down when he pays a visit to a mosque. Afterwards, Eyüp goes on to speak with a very poor man who works and sleeps inside a tea house in the neighborhood. Eyüp makes the same proposition to the poor man, Bayram, that Servet made to him: to claim the crime committed by his son. Bayram agrees. The last scene shows Eyüp at his home's balcony, staring at the Marmara Sea, and along with thunder it starts to rain.

catflap20 I can't remember if I've ever seen a Turkish film before, which is a pity, because if Three Monkeys is anything to go by, I have missed some terrific movies.This is a dark, stylish, noir thriller which sees a man agreeing to take the rap for his political master who is involved in a car accident. In return for doing time for a crime he did not commit, his boss will continue to pay his salary to his family, and also settle the 'debt' with a lump sum payment when the man is eventually released. While he is in prison, his wife is left to hold the family together and she and her son quickly get caught up in a web of passion and betrayal.Director, Nuri Bilge Ceylan carried off the Best Director Award at Cannes for this, his fifth feature, and it's not hard to see why.Three Monkeys is is a dark, brooding film, where every shot has been thought through and framed with meticulous detail. Long, intense close ups of the principal characters produces sustained psychological tension as unspoken words seem to fly through the air like knives.The principal cast of Three Monkeys; Yavuz Bingöl, Hatice Aslan, Ahmat Rifal Sungar, and Ercan Kesal, are universally good, but top credits should go to Hatice Aslan, the femme fatale of the piece, who has the ability to convey many layers of meaning by saying little and feeling much.Highly recommended.