Three Monkeys

This is an early achievement from director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and his screenwriter and wife Ebru Ceylan who also collaborated on the highly praised film Once in Anatolia. The story proceeds by way of ambiguous plot details that are as effective as an emotional landscape as a plotted story. But the story is pretty good as well. It has requisite 'noir' elements of compromise, corruption, unfaithfulness, and lies. The patient shooting style and devastating close-ups force the viewer into the emotional world of the characters. This is a great example of how world cinema can unfold a powerful in a fresh way, filled with ambiguities, paradoxes, and delectable ironies. 

The final image is a stunner, capturing the story, the emotional wreckage and maybe even the larger allegory for the country in general.  The title alone is a wry and cruel joke on the sad ambitions of the powerless.

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