Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys) (2008)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 57
Fresh: 44 | Rotten: 13
Exploring the effects of a family's dealings with an underhanded politician, this crime drama avoids showing the violent outcomes of its characters' misdeeds, resulting in a lingeringly potent film.
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 16
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 2
Exploring the effects of a family's dealings with an underhanded politician, this crime drama avoids showing the violent outcomes of its characters' misdeeds, resulting in a lingeringly potent film.
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Movie Info
Set in the areas of Istanbul rarely visited by foreigners, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's strange detective story traces the journey of a family that is suddenly dislocated when minor shortcomings explode into exorbitant deceptions. Now their only hope of remaining together is to cover up the truth, but can ignoring the hardships and responsibilities that would be impossible to endure ever really invalidate the existence of the truth? ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
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Cast
-
Yavuz Bingöl
Eyüp, Eyüp, Ey? -
Hatice Aslan
Hacer -
Ahmet Rifat Sungar
Ismail -
Ercan Kesal
Servet -
Cafer Köse
Bayram -
Gürkan Aydin
The Child
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Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys) Trailer & Photos
All Critics (57) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (44) | Rotten (13) | DVD (2)
Three Monkeys... is the latest eyeful from director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, one of a handful of international directors deserving of the title artist.
Top CriticAn elegant exercise with four characters trapped by class, guilt and greed.
There are enough ponderous moments that you may find yourself resisting the heavy mood.
The pace is deliberate, sometimes slow, but the whirlpool pull of this tragic psychological thriller is irresistible.
This is powerful filmmaking for discerning viewers.
With Three Monkeys, Nuri Bilge Ceylan trains his cool, detached sensibility on a ripe and pulpy melodrama that might have originated in a James M. Cain novel.
The noirish plot doesn't quite jibe with characters this inscrutable; all you really know about them is that they appear incapable of honesty.
The film is photographed in a noirish style, but it is so plodding that no part of it is the least bit thrilling.
If you like foreign films nearly two hours in length that are one long lingering shot, then "Three Monkeys" is for you.
Three Monkeys proves again that [Nuri Bilge] Ceylan has the eye of an artist, with a soul to match. If only his storytelling skills were equally represented.
Ceylan finds moments of stunning visual composition and his cast truly delivers, so art-house audiences will more than likely be satisfied by Three Monkeys, even if it's not a knockout punch.
Everything bubbling under the surface mostly stays there, while the soap opera-esque film very slowly becomes a pulp drama without any juice.
Tells an old-fashioned, melodramatic story, but director Nuri Bilge Ceylan does so vividly. . . A moral morass is a bit overwrought, but is revealed through visual poetry.
Stylish cinematography along with decent performances don't compensate for an often tedious plot that lacks any real tension, imagination or palpable poignancy.
Ceylan orchestrates all the elements of his film into a gripping experience of manipulation and retribution, with an ironic final twist.
A dysfunctional Turkish family struggles with the burdens of guilt, denial, and betrayal.
Director Ceylan uses neo-Antonioni techniques for a plot which calls much more for Billy Wilder or the Coen brothers. Cinematography can only go so far. In the final analysis, you need dialog, plot and character development for a good movie. "Three Monkey
If you're looking for an adultery- and revenge-fueled family melodrama so subdued that it keeps a hit-and-run fatality, cuckoldry, and murder entirely off screen, Three Monkeys is your movie and Nuri Bilge Ceylan your not-so-genre-inclined auteur.
Audience Reviews for Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys)
Super Reviewer
[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]While at least intriguing enough to let the audience draw their own conclusions, "Three Monkeys" is also very much dramatically inert in trying to answer the eternal question of how much you can tell about a person from her ring tone. Otherwise, this is a tale of loss, almost unbearably so, since it has been simmering for years and has sucked the life out of a household which is represented by the desaturated color scheme. However, there is the occasional sign of life and the color red makes a welcome appearance in a key scene.[/font]
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- Drei Affen (DE)
- Three Monkeys (Uc maymun) (UK)
