| Three Monkeys |  | Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Actors: Yavuz Bingol, Hatice Aslan, Rifat Sungar, Ercan Kesal, Cafer Kose
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
Category: Movie
Buy New: $3.99
as of 9/4/2010 21:17 MDT details
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Seller: Amazon Video On Demand
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 17,809
Genre: Art House
Rating: Unrated
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 105 Minutes
ASIN: B002YGY7ZC
Theatrical Release Date: May 16, 2008
Release Date: December 13, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Synopsis:
After his critically acclaimed mood pieces DISTANT and CLIMATES, leading Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan shifts gears in this twisty, noirish tale while retaining his mastery of ambience, nuance and astonishing cinematography. Winner of the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, THREE MONKEYS opens with an ambitious politician fleeing a hit-and-run accident in the dead of night. Afraid of hurting his election chances, he pays off his chauffeur Eyup to take the rap. While Eyup stews in jail, this devil's bargain takes its toll on his brooding son Ismail and restless wife Hacer, who falls into an illicit affair with the politician. Ismail's discovery of his mother's infidelity and Eyup's suspicions after he gets out of jail crank up the simmering tensions in a household already haunted by hidden ghosts. |
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| Customer Reviews:
 Solid August 25, 2010
Cosmoetica (New York, USA)
That this hour and forty-five minute long film won Ceylan the Best Director award at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival is no surprise. It's the sort of award that goes toward visual theatrics, and this film is an H- Bomb. But, it's telling that it was not a winner for best film. The Region 2 DVD, put out by Imaj, is a good package. Disk One has the film, in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but no commentary. It would have been interesting to hear Ceylan riff on the pros and cons of this film. Even a film scholar's thoughts would be welcome. The subtitles are in white, but given the sepia tone of much of the film this poses no problem in reading. The grammar and spelling errors, however, are another story, and point to a poor job of translation by the folks at Imaj. Disk Two has the extras- a behind the scenes featurette on the making of the film. This is ok, but lacking any commentary it consists mostly of retakes of assorted scenes. Then there is a featurette of the cast and crew at the Cannes Film festival, a couple of other featurettes on Ceylan and a Ceylan expert on the film and its worldwide reception, the original theatrical trailer, and a nearly hour and a half long interview program with Ceylan being queried by another Turkish filmmaker whose name is hard to divine. Nonetheless, the discussion is illuminating, deep, and had me longing for such a program to hit American airwaves. Particularly illuminating was Ceylan's claim that too often filmmakers and artists in politically repressive countries use censorship as an excuse for why their art is so bad and politicized, and lacking in creativity.
Some critics have tried to defend the soap operatic elements of the film on the fact that it is loosely based upon a real life event- the 1996 Susurluk case in Turkey; where innocents got punished instead of the actual criminals, who also were involved in murder and a pay for prison scheme. But, it does not matter to the viewer, especially the non-Turkish viewer. First, the real life circumstances of the Susurluk case were quite different from this film's set up; and second, even were they the same, it does not excuse all the melodrama and predictability that abounds in Three Monkeys. Melodrama, incidentally, was originally drama meant to be set to music, meaning that its writers realized that its simplistic narratives needed outside forces to help convey the totality of the scene. This is no slur, as the greatest melodramatist of all was William Shakespeare, and he used the music of his blank verse to help convey much of the import of his best plays. But, they pale next to the ethical and structural complexities of the great Modernist dramatists like those mentioned earlier in this essay, for, drama can stand on its own, sans music's buoy. All in all, Three Monkeys is a very schizophrenic film- with great (if only the loneliness and sacrifice themes had been accorded more weight) and bad (the predictability) in one, but it is also a film to see, for its amazing visuals, and the very fact that it shows a great artist whose art fails the greatness test, for the keys to understanding greatness are often hermetic in purely great art. There is a seamlessness that lets no eyes inside to see the substructure or architecture of greatness. Merely excellent or near great art, however, has holes and cracks that let in a viewer/critic see how the damned edifice was constructed, thus allowing for replication. Here's hoping that Ceylan, himself, gazes at the blueprint, and makes the proper corrections in his next film, for as it is, Three Monkeys is not only a regression from the heights of Climates, but it falls below the achievement of his even earlier Distant, as well.
 An emotional family burden July 25, 2010
Rizzo (Denver, CO)
If you are a viewer who is willing to absorb a movie that captures the emotional feelings, the body expressions, facial expressions, anxiety, despair and brooding moods, then you will enjoy this. If you need action to guide you, then this may not be for you.
There is no soundtrack that generally sets the mood and tone and pace of the film. It is up to the quality of acting to leads us to thinking, to know the characters, and to feel for them. Therefore, the pace appears slower, and you are one to determine how to utilize that pacing.
The Turkish film (2008) is about a politician who has left the scene of a traffic accident and could not jeopardize his political career. He asks his chauffer Eyup to take the rap, a charge of manslaughter and serve time in prison and Eyup's family will be rewarded with a large sum of money when he gets out. Evenutally, the consequences for such a deal wear upon the family, the wife Hacer, the young adult son, Ismail.
You will not see any action or damatic physical scenes, as those appear off screen, and the dialogue is minimal. Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, said in an interview that it is his habit "to keep chipping away at chat " and he doesn't like talky scenes." Therefore, the result is to focus on the silence and lingering shots of tormented or anguish faces. This method, is why some call the film very slow paced.
According to the director, the title comes from the notion of three monkeys, one who refuses to hear, one who refuses to see and one who refuses to speak. The three family members comprise the tale of monkeys being the family members who become involved in such an evil and overwhelming conspiracy that it eventually leads to their demise.
The film gets you to think, would you partake in such a conspiracy, not thinking out the consequences or what burden your family is able to carry. ....Rizzo.
Let Melodrama Be Melodrama. December 19, 2009
mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When I try to find words to describe Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Three Monkeys", "contemplative melodrama" comes to mind. That seems like a contradiction in terms, but it is representative of the incongruity that undermines this film's potential. At the center of the drama is a working class Turkish family. Eyup (Yavuz Bingol) is a driver for Servet (Ercan Kesel), who is running for political office. When Servet strikes and kills a pedestrian on a country road one night, he asks Eyup to take the blame in exchange for a cash payment. Eyup agrees and goes to prison for 9 months, while his son Ismail (Rifat Sungar) looks half-heartedly for a job, and his wife Hacer (Hatice Aslan) finds other distraction.
The plot is pure melodrama. The film is not so much contemplative as the characters spend a lot of time contemplating....I'm not sure what. Their motives are base and their actions trivial -which would be fine if "Three Monkeys" were not trying to be something it's not. It's self-consciously weighty. There is no score; the characters speak very little; the camera dwells on dank interiors and false-color exteriors. The palette is washed-out and grimy, reminiscent of a low-budget horror film. The tone is simply not suited to the material. This creates a persistent impression of artifice.
The characters live every moment as if they are going to their deaths, behavior that seems rather forced in an over-the-top simplistic plot. It begs for more action and less staring into space. If Eyup is supposed to be experiencing some sort of existential crisis brought on by his discovery that things may not have gone as he expected while he was away, it doesn't have a chance to work, because we see too little of Eyup. He's a peripheral character, absent for most of the film. I give "Three Monkeys" three stars for Hatice Aslan, who has a lot of screen presence. Too bad she doesn't have anything more to do than emote at awkward moments. None of the actors do, unfortunately. In Turkish with optional English subtitles.
The DVD (Zeitgeist 2009): The only bonus features on the DVD are a theatrical trailer (1 min) for "Three Monkeys" and a theatrical trailer for "Climates" (2 min). Subtitles are available in English only.
Post-Noir Masterpiece November 25, 2009
Liam Wilshire (Portland, OR)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Like many great films noir, THREE MONKEYS amounts to a lot of style attached to a slight amount of plot. Whatever anyone else thinks, I consider that to be praise.
A sleepy driver hits a pedestrian. The driver is a politician with an election pending and, with a phone call in the middle of the night, he persuades his personal driver to serve the prison sentence for him. This leads to disruptions in the driver's family, all of which brings about a melodramatically overwrought sequence of events.
It is a B-noir plot from the forties, with a difference: Nuri Bilge Ceylan's screenplay and direction has an intriguing way of revealing action and consequences. He makes us work, a little. Sometimes we see only actions following each other, with no hint of what connects them. Other times we see only the "dead" time in the spaces between the actions, and we have to infer what happened.
There is an enormous breadth to Ceylan's cinematic knowledge. From DISTANT, we know of Tarkovsky's influence; from CLIMATES, we saw his fondness for Tati, among others. Here, in THREE MONKEYS, it is Jean-Pierre Melville that comes to mind, especially BOB LE FLAMBEUR, which was once described as a movie about "how gangsters brush their teeth." But Ceylan has reached the point where his influences have become so uniquely swirled together, all you can truly say about him is that he is an original.
Is THREE MONKEYS a highly-stylized movie? You bet. If there is some complaint about that, I'm afraid I don't understand. It seems like complaining that Sam Fuller and Fritz Lang are overly-stylized.
From my first viewing of DISTANT, I knew I was in the presence of a master filmmaker, but I never would have guessed he would go in this direction. Movies ought to flabbergast us more often than they do. I'm happy to say I have been flabbergasted.
Remarkable November 15, 2009
maciora (Burbank, CA United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was hooked by this film. It's a compelling story: a selfish flight from personal responsibility forms the seed for a thin vine of desire which eventually cracks the foundations of a working class family. The casting and performances are first rate - Hatice Aslan as the wife and mother, wields a striking, classical beauty and maintains a haunted presence. The film revolves around and rests on her complex ambivalence.
As much as I love this film and wish to celebrate Mr. Ceylan's familiar, gorgeous imagery, I believe that the visuals here occasionally draw focus through a few overwrought visual touches than actually serve the film. This is a much more arresting-looking film than either "Distant" or "Climates." Mr. Ceylan's typically stripped-down narrative is well served by his flawless photographer's eye for composition - his pacing is perfect, echoing the authority of a master like Abbas Kairostami.
However, in a few instances I found the use of filters/post-production/visual effects distracting. In a lesser filmmaker, or one whose stories are less contemplative one could ignore these touches. In this story it made the narrative feel perhaps less important than the images. Or there was less concern about the tale than taking certain visual risks. Whatever the reason, I fell out of the story at those moments, noticing the filmmaker is tweaking the image, albeit to create something remarkable. I don't wish to imply that these rare moments ruined a great film; simply that it made me care differently.
All this points to a more complicated discussion about photographing emotional states and capturing that indefinable, relational electricity between characters, which ultimately is very personal. Mr. Ceylan is wrestling with these ideas here.
On it's own terms, "Three Monkeys" remains a powerful film and stylistic risks aside, I've enjoyed watching it several times.
I highly recommend it.
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