How Long Is “Climates”?

The seasons mark the stages in the collapse of a marriage in this drama from Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Isa (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) is a college professor with a younger girlfriend, Bahar (Ebru Ceylan), who works as an art director for television. Isa and Bahar have been together and seemingly happy for years, but as they vacation with friends in the seaside community of Kas, it becomes obvious the two are drifting apart, and one evening over dinner their tensions come out into the open; Bahar calls an end to their relationship as she heads home for Istanbul without her Isa. As fall sets in, Isa and Bahar have fallen out of touch with one another; he's resumed an on-again, off-again relationship with his lover Serap (Nazan Kesal) which is founded on a mutual enthusiasm for aggressive sex, while Bahar is working in Eastern Istanbul on a television project. With the coming of winter, Isa travels to the remote mountain location where Bahar has been working to pay a visit, though neither party is sure if they want to reconcile. Nuri Bilge Ceylan not only wrote and directed Climates (aka Iklimler) but played the male lead, Isa, while his real-life wife, Ebru Ceylan, portrayed Bahar.