Climates

Nuri and Ebru fall apart amidst beauty.

OK, ladies here it is: your revenge movie. Not a movie about revenge, but the one you can use to get your revenge. Remember that time you sent your guy to the video store to get “something we both want to see” and he came back with Transformers or Spiderman or some other movie based on a toy he played with when he was 8? Payback time.

“Climates,” from Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and starring him and his wife Ebru, is the kind of film most guys dread. It’s slow, beautiful, and about a relationship. Generally this kind of things happens to a backdrop of some political or historical importance, and since the film is Turkish, it’s surprising that we find no mention of Islam, the war, or any kind of turmoil in that part of the world. In fact, the movie feels French.

The title (which I think might be better translated “seasons”, but I don’t speak Turkish) refers to the seasons in their relationship, which naturally correspond to the seasons in which those relationships take place. In the summer, they break up. Autumn, and he’s alone and lonely(she’s not part of this chapter at all, and the movie suffers for her absence.) He pursues an old lover, and there’s an incredibly violent sex scene. Then comes winter, and he pursues her and they get back together…for now.

It is, without a doubt, a beautiful movie. The director justifies taking us to beautiful locales by making his character an art history student desperately trying to finish his thesis. There are plenty of shots — like these two — in which you are tempted to just pause the movie and admire what’s on the screen. Really, you might as well, because “Climates” paused and “Climates” playing are hard to tell apart. The director favors long takes, doesn’t have much use for dialogue, and completely eschews the use of a score. The result is plenty of time to empathize with the characters and admire the scenery.

The relationship is satisfyingly complex and nuanced. She is much younger than he is, and he can’t seem to help but patronize her. He cannot understand her impetuousness and her propensity for crazy stunts irritates him to no end. He responds like a father, and there you go. There is a wonderfully written and acted scene early in the movie at a dinner with friends — filmed in one take with no cuts – in which the problems and stymies in their relationship become crystal clear.

The middle act bogs down; it might be the absence of beautiful landscapes as he returns to his job at the university and his apartment, or it might be the absence of Bahar. (Don’t tell Nuri, but she is undoubtedly the better actor of the two.) The violent sex scene seems to be added just to shake things up a little. That it does, but personally, I’d prefer an explosion, or a decapitated hear, or — really, anything but violent sex. But the relationship with the old fling doesn’t go anywhere, and he yearns for what he’s lost. So, naturally, he goes after her.

The third act takes place in a snowscape, and we are relieved that she and the scenery have both returned to the film, not because we want them to get back together, but because the movie got so stuffy and claustrophobic without her. It ends somewhat ambiguously, and in a way I appreciated — old habits are hard to break, even when you’ve sworn to change.

This certainly goes on my list of “Movies to take naps to,” but that’s not exactly a bad thing. While it relies way too much on a certain foreign/indie film ethos of patience over pop and ends up coming across as pretentious and “artistic”, it is not without its own charm and merit. You do, after all, care about the characters, at least a little bit, and anyone who knows how a relationship can feel like it encompasses the whole world – including the weather – will identify.

Recommended if you like beautiful, slow relationshippy type movies;
if you’re intrigued by the idea of a Turkish film;
if you need to get revenge for “Die Hard.”

Not Recommended if you need movies that are “about things”
if you think “no explosions = bad movie”
if violent sex scenes give you bad dreams (or bring up bad memories)
if you’re feeling sleepy already.