Climates– B-

On DVD

Set in Turkey, this movie is about the difficult break-up of college professor Isa and his much younger TV director girlfriend Bahar. They break up at the beach while on vacation but he obsesses about her over the following months. He has a short fling with a former girlfriend before tracking Bahar down.

To say it’s leisurely paced would be a compliment. Turkish actor/writer/director Nuri Bilge Ceylan spends many minutes on the girlfriend’s face (played by his real life wife). Dude, we get it, you think she’s pretty. His other directorial touches are hit or miss. Before the break-up, while sleeping on the beach, she dreams that he smothers her with sand. Subtle. Did they teach that on the first day or the second day of film school? His use of the changing seasons as a metaphor for the complex feelings in all of us is nice, though. The use of snow is beautiful.

Ceylan has obviously watched a lot of Ingmar Bergman films with his camera angles and pacing. But the plot feels like Woody Allen (think Manhattan or Hannah and Her Sisters) – without the humor. It may only be that the Turkish culture is changing or modernizing into ours, but some common ground should be acknowledged in times like these. B-