CLIMATES
She stands... silently looking at her partner. It's hot and there's a hint of annoyance on her face. He seems not to notice her as he takes photographs of some Hellenistic ruins. Finally she approaches, gently brushing against him, making her presence known. He asks if she's bored, she lies and then leaves him again to sit on a hill opposite of the ruins. She looks on some more and then starts crying.It takes a good couple of minutes (or so it seemed) for a tear to appear and then ever so slowly to glide down Ebru Ceylan's ravishing cheek. Edit that Harvey Weinstein!
It's a tell-tell opening scene of a film that has become somewhat a cause celebré among online film enthusiasts. Battle lines have been drawn and positions have been established, either embracing or attacking Nuri Bigle Ceylan's new film for its meditative stylistics and its relentless ambiguity. So what's all the fuss about?
A softly spoken architecture professor (Bigle Ceylan) is vacationing with his partner, the much younger art-director Bahar (Ebru Ceylan) in Turkey's South West. Their relationship is on the rocks, presumably because the professor can't keep his fly zipped. They separate after a particularly violent quarrel and Bahar disappears from the picture while the professor takes up with his fiery ex with whom he obviously enjoys a much more... lets just say interesting, sex life. His peace is however disturbed when he finds out that Bahar has left Istanbul, possibly with another man, to go on a long location film shoot in Turkey's East. Soon, he's off printing photos of their summer vacation and picking up romantic trinkets in the hope of enticing Bahar back.
That's about it really. Yes, its minimalist, its simple, there's hardly any exposition... whatever. I won't indulge in facile arguments about boringness, slowness or any other base reactions. We should always approach the filmmaker on his own terms, without demanding that he dress down to suit what we want. In fact, the film is actually compulsively watchable. You're carried along from one scene to the next, just because you don't know where it's going to go. It's a significant advantage that is achieved by keeping the characters shrouded in heavy fog: "Heavy ambiguity ahead! Turn on your brain searchlights please!"
So, herein lies the charge: Is Nuri Ceylan masking a rather embarrassingly simplistic tale of love turning sour with a heavy coat of bullet-proof pretentiousness or is he really making a profound statement about alienation and the emotional malaise of the modern man?
Herein lies the evidence: take a female character, put her in a shopping centre and have her sobbing in front of a shelf full of detergent. In one version she's shouting to a woman standing next to her that her husband's been cheating on her. In the other version, she's just standing there, looking at the detergent bottles and silently sobbing and sobbing while people pass her by. Version one is what you're likely to see in a 'Neighbours' episode and it'd take a really great director and actress to make the scene anything but trashy. Version two could be a scene from Nuri Ceylan film. And lets face it, we're going to be much more intrigued with version two, simply because we don't know what is making the woman cry. If it sounds suspiciously easy... well, I'm afraid it is. A clever director always makes good use of the unknown quantity and mystery - David Lynch has built his whole career concocting impregnable puzzles. Yet, as always, it's a question of degrees. Compare what Lynch does with a similarly cliched 'relationship in crisis' story in 'Lost Highway' to Nuri Ceylan's film and you'll know what I mean. It's like exploring a new galaxy as opposed to a small Caribbean island. Ceylan has neither the astounding imaginative power of Lynch, nor the philosophical depth of Antonioni to transform his film into a path-breaker. Which does not mean it's not successful on its own, smaller scale. Granted, the film feels like the bastard child of Rossellini's 'Voyage to Italy' and Antonioni's 'La Notte' and it shows in every sprocket of its celluloid DNA, but it's not a mere clone (read: simulacra). I do think that 'Climates' takes up the very same thematic concerns of these earlier films, but travels much further in its deconstruction of a romantic relationship. In a way, Ceylan has made a transgressive film, but made it so covertly, most people seem not to notice. Those who love it are enticed by its romanticism, tending to read it as a quiet emotional roller coaster. Those who hate it, blame it for the same reasons - it's short in its reach and doesn't do much more than whine about banalities.
To me, the transgression lies in the fact that this is an anti-romantic romantic movie. The central relationship is constructed around something that the characters perceive of as LOVE - a notion that Ceylan progressively begins to dismantle. When Bahar instigates a near-fatal accident this act is immediately read as a passionate gesture on her behalf, proclaiming her love and frustration towards Isa. But looking closely, it's a rather pathetic imitation of amour fou, its impact weak and embarrassing. Bahar is playing a role she thinks she must fulfil because the scenario calls for it, like an impressionable child acting out a scene from a Hollywood movie since she has no better way to respond. Similarly, her constant sobbing is usually interpreted as a genuinely earnest statement by the filmmaker - an indictment of Isa's actions. The crying is an important detail since not only does it become a kind of emotional apex in the film, but also causes much irritation or admiration in the audience. But it is meant to be irritating! Bahar's tears hint at the theatricality inherent in this relationship. She's unable (or unwilling) to comprehend that their problem is not because Isa has an occasional fuck outside of their non-matrimonial unit, the problem is that they're absolutely uninterested in who the other person is. Isa wants Bahar only because she looks good on him. His narcissism is implicit in the way Ceylan acts out the character, rendering him almost infuriatingly passive; his blankness is not a result of stupidity but dismissiveness. He doesn't care what his partner thinks (never mind about feelings) and once he's "used" Bahar, he discards her through a persuasive double-speak by arguing that she can find a more appropriate partner because she's still "young and attractive". His coldness and detachment are only underlined by the fact that they're in an idyllic setting - a context that is rife for romantic regeneration. But Bahar is masochistic, which is mainly self-induced and Isa simply hates people. She has a dream during which Isa mistreats her and the rest of time milks his infidelity for all the self-pity she can get. He, on the other hand, can only sustain interest by reducing his partners to objects of possession, his ex-girlfriend, Serap, for example. Once he sees her in a bookshop with a friend, his interest is suddenly piqued. Serap knows Isa all too well and her long, knowing laugh reduces Isa to a stale nut - something which he later forces her to eat in the ambiguously staged, highly borderline sex scene.
This subversiveness is the most fascinating aspect of the film. Here we have two very unlikable characters, rather fearlessly portrayed by the director and his real-life wife, playing a charade which they wish to will into reality by sheer play-acting. Maybe Ceylan's film would've been more successful if he was more upfront about his intentions. But I like the deceiving nature of this film. By conning the audience into 'buying' this cheap melodrama, Ceylan seems to be saying that we're all involved in "playing the game". And it's a cruel one but as it transpires in the end, the characters (and maybe the audience too) are only too happy playing it.
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2 comments:
Bravo, bravo! A virtuoso performance in extracting a casserole out of a veritable broth, and in which you dismiss anyone with an opposing point of view as too feeble-minded (unlike the triumphantly superior author of this review) to comprehend the film’s transgressive qualities – an adjective which I think his highness uses far to loosely! But first things first: my gripe about this film is not about its lack of exposition or ambiguity or its anti-romanticism. In fact, these are usually hallmarks of some of my favourite film experiences. No, it was a series of things that by the end of the film made me feel less and less comfortable. Let me emphasise that the first half of the film was thoroughly intriguing, right up to the violent and deliciously ludicrous sex romp in which Isa and Serap literally fuck their way toward the camera/audience. After this scene, the air is ripe for darker themes, but they never materialize. Instead, the director decides to chart familiar waters in which girlfriends are perpetually crying over their partner’s misdemeanors (something which you defend as self-conscious theatricality – I agree, but I think that the effect is more dismissive than the one you suggest), and the partners themselves whoop it up and then try to pathetically clean up the mess. And no, a mind-numbingly obvious weather metaphor doesn’t succeed in depicting them as anything but a thoroughly banal couple. It may work as a formal device to organize the film, but it falls apart on any other level. In balmy Kas we know that their relationship, like the Hellenic temple behind them, is already in ruins; not even the heat can soften this ferment. So where do we wind up? After a couple of fillers, we are in the snowy stillness, yet another metaphor for a relationship that is dessicated and beyond redemption. Isn’t this more or less where we started? While there were a few redemptive scenes, it was an almost pointless journey – quite certainly the director’s intent. While the formal elements of the film were impressive and the real-life husband and wife team added piquancy to the dish, the gender roles, unsurprisingly, were grossly out of whack. At the start, Bahar appears to be the subject of the film, the camera unrelentingly capturing every twitch and insect that passes over her face. We are with her during the so-called ‘play-acting’ (the motorbike scene, the sandy asphyxiation, as well as the icy laugh – later echoed by Serap). But all of this is sidelined, negated even, by the triumphant male ego that suddenly reinstates itself as the subject. Or perhaps he was the subject all along and Bahar was merely the glistening object for a while (what husband/director would not range over his wife’s pleasing and youthful complexion)? This is likely, as any agency on her part was that of self-destruction, not self-determination. In any case, apart from the Serap episodes, there is really nothing to warrant his being there. We’ve seen men play this part before – and he reduces Bahar to the embodiment of listlessness and feminine yearning. The fact that he makes a last ditch effort to reclaim her seems both a testament to his play-acting (at winning back one’s love) and the fact that she represents the kind of woman he ultimately wants. Not the wordly independence of a woman his age, like Serap, but a pretty flower, often wordless, whose desires only seem to amount to a wedding ring (even the fact that she’s a set-designer for a TV soap seems to suggest a kind of flimsy artificiality). As for your claims of transgression . . . the whole idea of the characters being unlikeable and consumed with a misguided notion of love aren’t elements I’d perceive as subversive or ground-breaking. A particular take, yes. Subversive? Only with a great stretch of the imagination. Overall, it is not an entirely offensive film, but one that, as you say, is ‘small’ compared to offerings by other paragons of this kind of cinema (Antonioni, Bergmann et al). Its thematic and ideological shortcomings let me down and I think that other reviews (many exceedingly overblown) have overlooked them in favour of its more formal enticements.
Oh Please...
You seem to have a benchmark for 'darker themes' that never materliases except as a rather ambiguous phrase. What do you mean by 'the air is ripe for darker themes'? Murder, violence, psychosis? Aren't you just pining for a different sort of a cliche? To me, it was the last scene that made the film worth watching. What can be more darker than a complete and utter renunciation of romantic love, something that is almost the basis for most cinema? The kinkiness of the sex scene is no indication that there's a "darker" potential, since the whole desparate scenario is extremely bleak in itself. Besides there's no telling that any other route would've been less cliched or redundant. So I'm not sure whether your expectations are justified. Look, I did say that the film's weakness lies in its tentative commitment and overtly passive gestures. It's a question of tone and here it's much too vague for its own good. So the question comes down to the audience choice - do you see it as a straight drama or as a satire? I think the director's intention was to satirise the notion of romantic love, which makes it into a wholly different type of film. Neither Antonioni or Rossellini resorted to satire and both left a notion of hope in the end (see last shots of Voyage to Italy and L'Aventurra). Ceylan reject the whole enterprise outright exposing romanticism as a ridiculous sham. You may not think this is subversive in any way, but I beg to differ. Even the most cynical of films secretly hold out for some pathethic glimmer of hope. As for the 'mind-numbingly obvious metaphors'... I thought they were apt... considering the banality of the characters.
Your polemical stance on 'male ego' is rather overburdened with spite. At no point does Ceylan heroise the male character. What is so triumphant about Isa? The fact that he becomes the signifier in the middle of the film? That's not a quality, it's simply a position. And why do we need to demand of the director to give us a strong, fascinating, independent 'ideal' heroine who'd crush the steriotypes? Why is a film that knowingly and critically exposes this woman's weaknesses automatically categorised as mysoginist? Besides, isn't Isa's choice of Bahar over Serap indicative of his reprehensible superficiality? Isn't the director's condemnation obvious enough? Ceylan is equally cruel to both characters, exposing them as feeble, weak and confused figures. That's the transgression, the refusal to raise his characters to some kind of cinematic Olympus. Yes, they are banal, but it's a refreshing banality in a way because it so closely corresponds to reality that is so often ignored for the sake of imaginary "exclusives".
As I said earlier, I don't think the film is great by any stretch of the imagination, but its inherent detachment, almost Bressonian in its quality, coupled with a rich visual syntax, allows for numerous interpritations - all of which could have an equal stake at validity. It all comes down to choice. Rather like trying to find meaning in a Malevich 'Black Square' painting.
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