"Üç Maymun" or as the English title says: "Three Monkeys" is an OK movie, that offers good direction, a handful of good performances and nice visuals, but almost zero originality and little in tension or plot development.Servet kills a person and convinces his driver, Eyüp, to take the blame in exchange for money. But as Eyüp's son Ismail seems to be on a dangerous path, getting into fights and bad companies, Eyüp's wife Hacer decides to go and talk with Servet for an advancement of the money, a decision that will bring unexpected consequences.The movie doesn't offer much in the plot department. It is a traditional story of a dysfunctional family and of power relations, and corruption. The pace is quite contemplative, but assured and clear, and the tinge the whole movie has brings with it the right kind of mood. The actors all do a good job, even if it leans to the stoic kind of, with silences and contained-violence. But the movie lacks the touch that would make it stand out, and it ends becoming just one more of its kind.All in all, it is an interesting movie, but nothing out of the ordinary.

I am not the best reviewer nor the best English speaker but pleas hear my words. I think Nuri Bilge Ceylan is awesome, I actually liked his last two movies. After watching Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and Winter Sleep and seeing this movie on YMS's (a movie reviewer, you-tuber) list i gave it a shot.I felt like even the Turkish TV shows could tell this story faster. (They took 2 hours per episode and at least 2 season) This movie feels like a photography slayt, most of time nothing happens on those great shoots. Characters and story itself wasn't interesting at all. I love those depressed, static scenes but it was exaggerated in this movie and it didn't gave the results like Chan-wook Park's movies does. I am sure a lot of people quoted this before but "Drama is life with the dull bits cut out." -A.H, Which in this movie there were only dull bits.There wasn't enough characters nor events, the ones we got were very undeveloped and uninteresting. You may think because the writer wanted to make it 'a cut from real life' but he didn't stick with that either. The ending was awfully cringe-worthy, i am not going to give spoilers because this should be read before watching that disaster. But if you watch it you'll see that characters can not be placed in to anywhere. They are acting randomly e.g. "I am a very nice person but i am going to be very rude in just this scene for NO reason." At least his next movies were having more interesting stories but still pretty boring. Maybe he can start taking some risks at some point. Because Turkish cinema is awful and this guy is like a treasure to us.

There may not be much dialog in this, but that's offset by a desperation that is anything but silent. In addition, this film is almost always shot in the most grimy light; so as one reviewer already wrote you have the recipes for a "miserabilist's" delight.Unlike that reviewer though, I was quite captivated by this. Some of it surely was the lure of a look into a foreign culture, granted a somewhat lurid look. Still the poverty they are trapped in comes with a fantastic view, and the constant flow of wind helped to keep a somewhat fresh feeling to the trapped dwelling for the main family. I supposed that wind is to remind us of forces we cannot see and we cannot control but yet are constantly at play.I also think the casting was crucial here, via the dual nature of the faces. The son who wanting to project street tough, often looks like a sheepish 13-year old. The father whose macho exterior belies the fact that he's powerless. And the mother, who was a tremendous choice, the make-up and lighting help to accentuate that she is worn-out, but the glimmer of her beauty in decline and her desire for some joy to shine out of her tired eyes make her as stark a contrast as the lighting in the film. Her cell phone ring cries out for her, a long gone Turkish love pop song souring.And I'm leaving off Ercan Kesal as the political functionary who connects all three as each member of the family makes a bad decision involving him. His weasel-y nature is communicated also without words.I like that the filmmaker does not need to cement the unity of this family with specific on-screen action, even as their mistakes push the family towards fragmentation. Blood remains thicker than water in every nation, although an aquatic apparition is summoned. It connects them but does it also condemn them to fragmentation? A film about scary sacrifices in gorgeously ghastly light.

Üç maymun (2008), directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is a Turkish film shown in the United States with the title, "Three Monkeys." The film explores the dynamics of a working-class family when these dynamics are changed by the actions of an upper-class employer.Yavuz Bingol plays Eyüp, who is a chauffeur for a wealthy businessman/politician. His wife, Hacer--played by the lovely Hatice Aslan--and his son, Ismail (Rifat Sungar) are the other two family members. Although many reviewers have called the family dysfunctional, I think that, at the outset of the film, they aren't much different from other families. We all know of families with two hard-working parents and a young-adult son who lives at home. The son is drifting towards trouble, but hasn't actually gotten there yet. The scenario isn't all that unusual.At the very outset of the film, the chauffeur's employer has killed a pedestrian, and then left the scene of the accident. That sets the plot in motion--everything follows from that event.This is a somber, thoughtful film. There's very little on-screen violence and almost no gaiety either. Ceylan reminds me of Chantal Ackerman in his use of long, middle-distance takes. If someone is going somewhere, we get long scenes in which we see the person walking, then riding on a train, then walking again. The scenes aren't random. At that point in the plot, the person must move from point A to point B. Most directors would show him or her leaving a house, and arriving at an office, or vice-versa. Ceylan shows us the character actually traveling from A to B. Once I got into the rhythm of the film, I enjoyed this slow and careful directorial style. Whether or not you like the film may hinge on your acceptance or rejection of Ceylan's technique.We saw this film in the wonderful Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. I think it would work almost as well on DVD.