The seasons mark the stages in the collapse of a marriage in this drama from Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Isa (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) is a college professor with a younger girlfriend, Bahar (Ebru Ceylan), who works as an art director for television. Isa and Bahar have been together and seemingly happy for years, but as they vacation with friends in the seaside community of Kas, it becomes obvious the two are drifting apart, and one evening over dinner their tensions come out into the open;
Bahar calls an end to their relationship as she heads home for Istanbul without her Isa. As fall sets in, Isa and Bahar have fallen out of touch with one another; he's resumed an on-again, off-again relationship with his lover Serap (Nazan Kesal) which is founded on a mutual enthusiasm for aggressive sex, while Bahar is working in Eastern Istanbul on a television project. With the coming of winter, Isa travels to the remote mountain location where Bahar has been working to pay a visit, though neither party is sure if they want to reconcile. Nuri Bilge Ceylan not only wrote and directed Climates (aka Iklimler) but played the male lead, Isa, while his real-life wife, Ebru Ceylan, portrayed Bahar. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
[Director Ceylan] has created a plaintive work of art in Climates, the story of a mature relationship edging from the stale doldrums of summer to a winter of discontent.
[The] main character spends an inordinate amount of time brooding and staring off into the distance, alternating with scenes of that character's girlfriend brooding and staring off into the distance.
The beauty of the Turkish film Climates, a small but indelible masterpiece, is more than skin-deep. No 2006 film meant more to me. It's as sharp and lovely as the best Chekhov short stories.
Artsy fartsy, Great premise & beautiful images are not enough to save this film from being vacuous, It lacks enough substance & depth, Not to mention that it follows the same old "men as assholes & women as sweet innocent human beings" cliche
July 6, 2009
Arash Xak
Super Reviewer
Painfully slow movie shot as a series of beautiful stills (you can tell the director is a photographer) about a dead-end relationship.
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