Even from an air-conditioned theater in drizzly Seattle, you can
feel the stifling Turkish heat in Three Monkeys, a grim family
drama that opens with thunderclaps and death and closes with thundering
trains and more death.
A rising politician is driving down a road at night, through a
tunnel of low-hanging trees, when, dozing, he hits a pedestrian in the
dark. The pedestrian does not get up, and the politician—fearing
for his chances in the upcoming election—gets the hell out of
there. Cut to a shabby but comfortable apartment, where the politician
convinces his longtime driver—the mustachioed, brooding
Eyüp—to take the fall. In exchange, he promises a lump sum
for Eyüp’s family (his beautiful wife, Hacer, and even more
beautiful son, Ismail).
Three Monkeys—which won Best Director at Cannes last year—is an understated noirish drama full of
lies, yellow light, sexually charged violence, and a few startling
moments of ghostly magical realism. Big secrets start to percolate up
through the heavy, dripping heat: Hacer’s infidelity, and the
unexplained death of a child that appears to have poisoned this little
family years before.
This film is slow, and it’s bleak. It also asks more questions than
it answers—leaving gaping holes on the matters of family dynamics
(were they ever happy?), Eyüp’s rage (was he always so
brutal? Is it a symptom or a cause?), and, of course, that small, sad
dead child who haunts all the proceedings. These informational gaps,
rather than being a distraction, lend a credible humanity to the whole
thing: You know what you need to know, which is that the best
intentions can lead down the most destructive paths, sometimes
communication is impossible, and some secrets should stay secret. 
This article has been updated since its original publication.
