Climates

Straight from this year’s New York and Toronto Film Festivals, Climates marks a step forward in the quickly evolving world of digital filmmaking, employing the unique textures and possibilities of the digital image. In this film, the droll Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Distant) moves metaphorically and geographically from the warmth of western Turkey to the snowy cold of its eastern border in this visually stunning tale of a couple’s break-up and the aftermath. The director himself plays the lead role of selfish middle-aged man who splits with his girlfriend (played by the director’s wife) and then travels across Turkey when he changes his mind. It is a doleful study of a very flawed man, and while there is nothing to suggest that Climates is a self-portrait, Ceylan is nonetheless brave for embodying such an unflattering example of manhood. With subtitles. (Nuri Bilge Ceylan; Turkey; 2006; 97 min)