The heavy mood of indolence and rage, calibrated with ellipses in action, is stifling--everyone seems to move in a queasy haze.
Three Monkeys(Üç maymun)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Turkey, France, Italy · 2008
1h 49m
Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Starring Yavuz Bingöl, Hatice Aslan, Ahmet Rıfat Şungar, Ercan Kesal
Genre Drama, Thriller
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A family battles against the odds to stay together when small lies grow into an extravagant cover-up. In order to avoid hardship and responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth, not to see, hear or talk about it. But does playing “Three Monkeys” invalidate the truth of its existence?
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Good pulp depends, above all, on a ruthless sense of economy, and Three Monkeys is just a bit too profligate, too fancy, to be entirely convincing.
Ceylan’s departure from his moody sonatas "Distant" and "Climates" into more plotted film noir is equal parts Bresson and Buñuel, a merciless etching of the indiscreet charmlessness of the Turkish bourgeoisie, which sharply raises the stakes on that class’s petty hypocrisy and serial betrayals.
But gripping as the film often is, its unrelenting doom and gloom offers fewer lasting rewards.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Unpredictable and gratifying, Three Monkeys emerges as a mordant cautionary tale on the contagiousness of corruption. It is rich in atmosphere.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey
Though Three Monkeys feels conventional compared with Ceylan's other work, it maintains its auteurist imprint, especially the rich colour palette and suggestive HD camerawork that helped Ceylan take the best-director honours at Cannes this year.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker
Ceylan has an unerring gift for camera placement, and his slow, measured scenes can be as hypnotic as they are lovely -- at times, too much so, with the characters constrained by his poetic perfection.
This is powerful filmmaking for discerning viewers.
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