Climates

I cannot recommend this film highly enough. Extraordinarily beautiful photography compliment a pacing which allows the viewer to absorb the rich details. There is an intense effort to capture the elusive quality of realizations which are being sensed in a confused present. Too often we see the drama of relationships being tested, elevated intensities highlighting the struggle to change or remain unchanged. It's less common to see characters struggle quietly with the dawning recognition that there is a bankruptcy in their affection. A couple, Bahar and her older partner Isa on vacation in a coastal town in Turkey, face the painful disintegration of their relationship. The performances which bring this delicate state to the surface are all the more remarkable since they are played by the filmmaker and his wife. The painful inability to function in a relationship, either from one's emotional atrophy or because one has outgrown that union but can't see it, is at the core of the film. The actors play this out with great sympathy avoiding simple answers. While little happens in terms of action, both characters attempt to move forward with their lives, their choices often outpacing the growth of their knowledge. Of note is a small performance by Nazan Kirilmis who plays Serap, one of Isa's former lovers in Istanbul. While her presence in the film is brief it's terrific casting, coloring the film's quiet tone and adding a small flash of fire to the story. Not only does this aid in the films dynamic structure, it helps to clarify Isa's ambivalence, grounding Bahar's pain in real terms. I've watched the film several times, marveling at the storytelling economy, the photography and the performances. I highly recommend this film.

Nuri is a master and here is another reason why. Enjoy and make sure to watch all his other works.

Great acting, thought provoking, Beautiful set.

While the film is a little lacking in story, and it has slow pacing, it is shot absolutely beautifully. This is the first movie of Nuri Ceylan's that I've seen and I liked it, but there could've been a little more going on in the script.

After being highly impressed with the film Uzak I was looking forward to watching this one. The film is based around a crumbling relationship between husband and wife. The husband being somewhat older than his wife and previously involved in an extra marital affair. The film begins with the couple on holiday, the intensity is tangible from the very off as both parties seem to be more awaiting the moment when they should leave each other but delay it on the pretext of a "well you first" The relationship crumbles and they both go their separate ways, the husband to the woman who he had a relationship with the wife, to her work in a TV company. The film is dark, at many times depressing as it examines the collapse and reconstruction of a relationship. Ceylan has hit upon a recipe that many French directors try at but fail miserably. He depicts realism through his lack of extra background lighting, music and minimal dialect. It brings the viewer into the film, makes the viewer care about the characters, sympathise with them and examine the film. French films try hard at this but end up with pointless sex scenes and even more pointless dialect that just bores and annoys the viewer. Recomended but not as good as Uzak.

2006's Climates (Iklimler, literally Weather Conditions) is the third film of Turkish director and screenwriter Nuri Bilge Ceylan's that I've seen, and it is the first one in which he has starred in as an actor. Each of the films has gotten better than its predecessor, and, since his previous film, Distant, touched greatness, Climates had its work cut out for it; but it succeeded. That stated, many critics who compare the film's style and characterizations to those of the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, at his height, are only seeing superficial resemblances. Yes, both directors used long shots that featured landscapes prominently, and Ceylan's cinematographer Gokhan Tiryaki, works wonders with the camera; but Ceylan is interested, to a far greater extant than Antonioni, in the inner human landscapes of the psyche. Antonioni's films had protagonists which were never allowed to open up to the viewer. They were all surface, and no depth. And I mean that not in a bad way. Antonioni saw humans as props to explore deeper terrains, that which was transhuman. Ceylan does not. He is interested in the fundamentally human, and in this manner, he far more resembles the work of Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos than Antonioni, although all three filmmakers have a definitive Mediterranean visual sensibility. Climates is a masterpiece, but it is more than that. It is also possibly an augur to even better things cinematically. It is not an overstatement to declare that Ceylan may be the best living filmmaker today. And, if one argues with that claim, then one might only add that he's the best still at the height of his powers. Yes, Angelopolous's Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow was great, but he's been at a high level for decades now. Ceylan, on the other hand, is still in ascent. Watch Climates, and feel his pull.

Beautiful film - my favorite of all of Ceylan's movies. Ebru Ceylan and Nuri together on the screen make for a pefect acting couple. The photography is as ever breath taking - and the story is so simple that you wander why nobody else has done it. That's the true mark of genius - making things look simple. Superb - 9/10

i like to watch it sometimes. time to time. it find interesting each time i watch. like nuri bilge ceylan.

After being highly impressed with the film Uzak I was looking forward to watching this one. The film is based around a crumbling relationship between husband and wife. The husband being somewhat older than his wife and previously involved in an extra marital affair. The film begins with the couple on holiday, the intensity is tangible from the very off as both parties seem to be more awaiting the moment when they should leave each other but delay it on the pretext of a "well you first" The relationship crumbles and they both go their separate ways, the husband to the woman who he had a relationship with the wife, to her work in a TV company. The film is dark, at many times depressing as it examines the collapse and reconstruction of a relationship. Ceylan has hit upon a recipe that many French directors try at but fail miserably. He depicts realism through his lack of extra background lighting, music and minimal dialect. It brings the viewer into the film, makes the viewer care about the characters, sympathise with them and examine the film. French films try hard at this but end up with pointless sex scenes and even more pointless dialect that just bores and annoys the viewer. Recomended but not as good as Uzak.

There's a certain poetry to Ceylan's film, 'Climates', to be found in the way that the film lingers meditatively on landscapes, weather conditions and individuals; with the former functioning as an extended metaphor for a dying relationship. The film opens in the summer in a small Turkish resort on the Mediterranean and depicts underlying tensions in the relationship between its protagonists, Isa, (played by Ceylan himself), and his girlfriend Bahar, (played by Ceylan's wife, Ebru). Initially, the problems seem to be with the moody Bahar whose sullen nature casts a damper on the holiday, but as the sparse narrative unfolds we learn that Isa has had a past indiscretion with a woman called Serap and this has coloured their relationship. The holiday ends prematurely with the pair deciding to go their separate ways and we move through autumn - when Isa re-kindles the shallow relationship that he had with Serap which was based on sex - to winter - where he travels to eastern Turkey in the hope of finding genuine satisfaction by being with Bahar again. The film centres on whether a reconciliation is possible and there is an element of dramatic tension in the uncertainties on both sides. A weakness in the narrative, however, lies in its ending which appears to be at odds with the conduct of the characters in the latter stages of the film. The resolution, when it comes, seems unsatisfying, and, as the credits roll, one cannot help thinking: 'Is that it?'

"Climates" is a worthy follow up to the memorable "Uzak" by Turkish director and actor Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Ceylan plays the leading role in "Climates" alongside his real life wife Ebru Ceylan. They play an Istanbul couple whose relationship is slowly breaking up and this drama unfolds over three seasons each with very different climates, hence the title of the film. "Climates" starts off in the summer by the Turkish coast, moves to a rainy Istanbul before concluding in blizzard like conditions in a wintery rural location. The film is slow moving and is full of poignant scenes as it follows the life of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's character over the course of the break up ; from wanting rid of his girlfriend, to discovering the loneliness of the single life to trying to win her back again.The film is mesmerising at times and it is gripping throughout. The acting and direction of "Climates" is excellent as well. This film makes for a refreshing antidote to the deluge of dumbed down Hollywood trash that is on offer in the cinemas at the moment. It is an intelligent, well observed film from a talented director.