Nuri Bilge Ceylan: Climates
Sunday, May 20, 2007
still from Climates, 2007
© Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Over the weekend I saw three films by Nuri Bilge Ceylan: Clouds of May (1999), Distant (2003) and, his most recent, Climates (2006). Rarely do I allow myself the chance to see three films in the theatre (especially in a span of two days), but it’s been rainy in Boston and after seeing his earliest film, Clouds of May, I was curious what Ceylan would make of other story lines.
Hailed as “the only masterpiece of the [2006 Cannes] festival” by the New York Foundation for the Arts, Climates is the story of a searing relationship between a man and a woman (played by the director and his wife, Ebru Ceylan) that becomes a psychological portrait of an insecure man. At the close of her rave review, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis compares Ceylan to Michelangelo Antonioni, commenting that “while [Ceylan’s] films are similarly personal, they’re more accessible… The mysteries of his work are those of the heart, the head, the soul.”
Climates, as Dargus and many other critics have noted, has echoes of the work of Antonioni. The treatment of landscapes — their function as objective correlatives — is perhaps what Ceylan acquired from the old Italian master. As a filmmaker from Turkey, Ceylan seems to naturally embody the influences of both East and West.
His films have been stunning to watch but, beyond the aesthetics of cinema, his stories involve consistently dazzling portraits of the characters. And after seeing all three films, I can say without hesitation that Ceylan is a filmmaker starting to come to his own. These may be his “early days” but, in Climates alone, Ceylan shows very powerfully how he is able to play out the complexities of human relationships, with compound inner emotions described most carefully.
Whatever comes next from Nuri Bilge Ceylan is worth waiting for.
Though it will never, of course, do the film any real justice, you can see a short trailer for Climates here.
