Three Monkeys

This is a brooding tale of moral failure that won't be to everyone's taste. It's slow and quiet, with the key moments happening offscreen. We only hear the opening car accident and never see the culminating murder, nor the incident that results in Ismail's battered face. We are unsure about the precise moment the affair between Hacer (Ismail's mother) and Servet (responsible for the accident) begins. In a way, it's fitting as characters throught seek to avoid responsibility or ignore what's happening. It's not only the culprit who flees the scene of the car accident. A couple who subsequently arrive don't actually bother to check whether the victim is alive, but drive on with the intention of phoning the police. Servet pays Eyup (Hacer's husband) to take the blame, and action later echoed when Eyup himself tries to persuade a friend to admit to committing a murder. On a more mundane level, people at the railway station studiously pretend not to notice Ismail's vomitting fit. The muted colour palette of this morally ambivalent world is only enlivened by the flashes of red that appear in Hacer's outfits once she begins the affair. This is offset by the impressive sound design, where the sound of breathing is as important as dialogue, and which culminates in the onset of a thunderstorm as Eyup stands alone on the rooftop at the end. It serves to not only break the suffocating heat of the town, but also reflects the troubles that have befallen this family unit.