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Subtle triumph: 'Climates' shows pain of human relationships
Climates, from the accomplished Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is an ambiguous yet powerful presentation of the end of a relationship. The two chief characters, shown in impressive closeups, are played brilliantly by the director and his wife, Ebru. Isa, an overbearing professor, is taking pictures of a ruined temple near the Black Sea; Bahar, a young TV art director, is already close to tears. Riding a motorbike along the beach, she impulsively puts her hands over his eyes, causing an accident. Mr. Ceylan makes striking use of landscape, by the sea, in Istanbul, and later in a wintry eastern province of Turkey: Everywhere there is a sense of alienation and existential solitude; critics have rightly compared the director with the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. He holds his shots longer than usual, allowing time to reflect on every gesture. Bahar goes back to Istanbul alone, while Isa returns to his university routine. After a rough sexual encounter with his former girlfriend, he visits his mother, who tells him to get married and have children. Isa says he wants to go south--"I need some decent weather"--but rushes east to where Bahar is working. In a wonderful scene in a van, with the TV crew coming and going behind them, he proposes marriage. But there is a feeling of quiet inevitability to the ending, with snow falling gently on Isa's tearful face. "Climates" is a subtle film that does not explain or prove anything, but reminds us of the painful ambiguity of human relationships.
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