Three Monkeys

Three Monkeys

Seeing, hearing and speaking no evil comes all too easily to the tortured trio in "Three Monkeys," a powerfully bleak family drama that leaves its characters' offenses largely off screen but lingers with agonizing, drawn-out deliberation on the consequences. Bad faith, simmering resentment, adultery and murder all figure into Nuri Bilge Ceylan's darkly burnished fifth feature, giving it a stronger narrative undertow than his previous Cannes competition entries, "Distant" and "Climates." But gripping as the film often is, its unrelenting doom and gloom offers fewer lasting rewards, making it unlikely to draw sizable art-house crowds beyond the Turkish fan base.

Nuri Ceylan showed us love, hatred, poverty, betrayal and revenge. He stripped serious issues by putting us in the middle them. We felt every simple thing with that family, breathing, sweating, snoring and even the summer breeze coming from the kitchen's window.

Extremely emotional. Sadness, happiness, love, family relationships, in a brief, you can find every emotion that we have in the movie. Well acting, good screenplay, enough picture. One of my favorite.

I liked that story. It looks like my own story. I felt somebody knows my history, and wrote its details. I don't know why and how, but I found this movie very close to me. One of my friend advised me to watch 3 Monkeys when he watched it. He said to me 'You will find your life story in that movie.' I thought he was exaggerating. But he was wright. The picture, the atmosphere, the feelings, the dialogues were parts of my life. How can a director describe humanity such so powerful. I liked him and his way. Thank you Mr. Ceylan for your professionalism. You are a real master. No doubt, this movie is a masterpiece. You have to find and watch it. May be you can find something from your story.

I found this ponderous in the extreme, though my main source of irritation is that it is extremely ugly despite being carefully composed. The harsh digital tint that signals digital is becoming monotonous, and used only because of its cheapness rather than suitability. For a claustrophobic drama like Three Monkeys it's a disaster. Ceylan has a fondness for facial close-ups but here it looks the cast have a severe case of jaundice. The only film I can recall that has used this well and taken advantage what it can offer is Valhalla Rising, where it complimented the barren landscape perfectly.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan shows us how an awful screenplay turns to a good movie in a professional director's hand. I think he deserved all those award because of that reason. Overall acting was good. Especially those two Yavuz Bingol and Ercan Kesal who are not actors in real (Bingl is a musician and Kesal is a doctor) were remarkable. By the way, to put a dead child in a movie to support the physiological atmosphere and subject of the movie was a good idea. But still I did not like the form of the child as he was too scary to be a part the movie. So, 0 for the screenplay, 6 for performers and 8 for the director.

With good performances and an interesting and dramatic story, the movie tends to meander quite a lot in its plot and when it gets to its conclusion, it doesn't really feel like it has accomplished its objectives.

First of all to appreciate this film you have to be an art-house film fan. Pace is slow. There was an absence of sound track. And no action. I was first exposed to director Ceylan's work through "Unce Upon a Time in Anatolia", and was immediately addicted to his style of story telling. From the opening long take (a car driving down a narrow country road at night) to the ending take (male head of family standing on top of the apartment roof looking out to the sea and sky, deep in thought), you sense the Ceylan signature. This is a family drama, about how the lives of a family of three were forever changed after the head of the family, a driver, agreed to accept a deal from his boss to assume liability in a hit-and-run accident and spend 9 months in jail in return for a lump sum cash payment. For this film I have all the patience required. After two films by Ceylan, I have become a fan. Highly recommended for those that are interested in alternatives to Hollywood dramas.

How long does one have to sit through a film to feel that something interesting is going to happen? After 30 minutes or so, I began hoping something would change in this film to keep me from falling asleep. Do I really want to look at depressive people's faces for more than 30 seconds at a time without a single word being uttered and feeling like the characters in this film are really messed up people with not much intelligence. Is this life in Turkey? If it is, there is something seriously wrong there. I think maybe it's the depressive nature of the director who crafts his film thinking about art more than telling a story to draw in the viewer. Why else make a film if it is not for the audience? Is it just some type of exercise, discipline? Life flows. It is not stuck in stills with altered colors giving it meaning. Not worth anyone's time, IMO.