Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan is something of an arthouse darling, having made a name for himself as a maker of slow, sprawling Antonioni-esque explorations of loneliness, isolation and emotional repression. In his latest film, Climates, he does not disappoint his usual audience.
The film stars Ceylan and his real-life wife, Ebru, as a vacationing couple on the verge of a breakup. It takes place over three seasons, or three climates, as Isa (Ceylan), an emotionally stunted 47-year-old professor, breaks up with his beautiful and much younger girlfriend Bahar (Ebru), rekindles an old affair with a married lover, and then regrets the breakup and travels to the snowy north to try to win back his ex-girlfriend.
Ceylan is a photographer first, and his gorgeous cinematography takes the place of dialogue in the film; no one says much, but his sparse landscapes tell all. Isa and Behar are pots of stunted expression, their feelings never quite matching the climates they visit—they break up in the warmth of a summer beach and attempt a reconciliation in the harshest of snowy winters. Isa is a portrait of manhood that we are all familiar with—a man who doesn’t want to settle down, who wants only what he can’t have, who doesn’t understand women because he doesn’t really want to do so. For Bahar’s part, she doesn’t really offer much explanation for her own emotional outbursts, but that’s what this film is about–detachment, and the ways we seem incapable, or unwilling, to communicate or connect.
The problem, though, is that it all feels a bit too familiar. Not just the plot; there are plenty of brilliant films that tell basically the same story, or even have none at all. But here, the whole package feels like a rehash. Cinematically, Climates has all the requisite long takes, sparse dialogue, jump cuts, and narrative elisions to meet traditional standards of quality. But unfortunately, it feels a little as if that’s all there is; a grab-bag of art-film tricks, hung on a very thin storyline and stamped with Ceylan’s name. It’s unclear what makes Climates something different, or something that truly belongs to Ceylan, and for that reason it ultimately it rings a bit hollow.
That’s not to say the film is without merit; the cinematography alone makes it worth seeing, particularly the near-final shot, looking straight up into a snowy sky as Isa’s plane roars overhead, with flakes quietly falling on and around the camera’s lens. Ceylan certainly has talent, but it remains to be seen whether he can bring his talents together to create a truly unique piece of art.
Climates opens tonight, Friday January 12, for a one-week engagement at the E Street theater.
