Climates (film)

Climates
Poster
Directed by	Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Written by	Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Starring	Ebru Ceylan Nuri Bilge Ceylan Nazan Kırılmış
Release date(s)	2006
Country	Turkey
Language	Turkish

Climates (Turkish: İklimler) is a 2006 Turkish drama film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The film charts the decline and possibility of renewal of the relationship of a professional Istanbul couple, İsa and Bahar, played by Ceylan and his wife Ebru Ceylan. It was Ceylan's first film shot on High-definition video.

Plot

The film starts on a summer holiday in Kaş, where the couple are barely talking. İsa is taking pictures of ancient monuments for a perpetually unfinished thesis or the university class he teaches; Bahar watches. At the beach she falls asleep and dreams that he is smothering her in sand. After rehearsing his speech while Bahar is swimming, Isa tells her that he wants to break up. While riding back to the city on a motorbike she suddenly covers his eyes with her hands; they have an accident, but get away with it. The couple go their separate ways and Bahar tells him not to call.

As fall follows summer, back in Istanbul, İsa visits a woman, Serap, with whom he cheated on Bahar before. He drags her onto the floor in her apartment and rapes her. Winter arrives and İsa dreams of a holiday in the sun but instead flies to Ağrı, the snowy eastern province of Turkey, where Bahar is working as an art director filming a TV series on location. He tries to win her back, but she rejects his advances. She has recently lost her father, but he is indifferent to her suffering. She comes to his hotel room late at night and stays overnight, but in the morning he flies off alone.

Cast

• Ebru Ceylan
• Nuri Bilge Ceylan
• Nazan Kırılmış
• Mehmet Eryılmaz
• Arif Aşçı
• Can Özbatur

Technique

The film features long takes of head shots, and poetic landscapes. The dialogue has long silences during which casual sounds are highlighted, such as the sound of a woman drawing on a cigarette.

Reception

The film was nominated for the Golden Palm at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival,^[1] and won the FIPRESCI Award there. At the premiere in Cannes, Ceylan was widely criticized, as the HD format was considered inappropriate for his poetic, long take style. Later critics were generally more favorable. Critic Michael Phillips chose the film as the best film of the year and as the third best film of the decade^[2]

References

1. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Climates". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/4351248/year/2006.html. Retrieved 2009-12-13. 
2. ^ http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/atm/specials/bestofthedecade/index.html

External links

• Official website
• Climates (film) at the Internet Movie Database
• Web site with trailer
• Review of Climates