Three Monkeys (2008)

Three Monkeys is a somber Turkish drama in which a politician bribes his driver to take the blame (and short prison term) for a hit-and-run death on a backwoods road. Actually, the drama evolves out of the toll that the driver's prison term takes on his wife, on his son, and on himself. It's a largely quiet film with many long moments when a character is gazing pensively or reflecting on the import of the latest complication. These are not empty moments but palpably reflective and even insightful (for the character and, I expect, the viewer). In short, you care about each character and perceive the turmoil they're going through even if they generally don't show it; you can almost see the wheels turning in their minds as they uncover the progressively weightier burden that one man's absence has cost the family. Moreover, that burden of loss has an inertia that inexorably perpetuates itself into others' lives, like the chilling rings of a silent bell that echo through flesh and bone, impacting not one's eardrum but the tympanic membrane of one's soul. Three Monkeys feels like Los Olvidados meets Crimes and Misdemeanors not just by reason of its plot but a mild sense of surrealism or magical realism as characters evince dialog or encounters they may be thinking but are not acting out -- at least in the current timeline (and one might surmise several). Three Monkeys has less action and structure than Memento but it's a thinking person's movie. I hope you enjoy this taut, tightly wound but slow-paced film as much as I did. 4.5 stars. (11-24-2010, posted 3-16-2016)