iklimler - Climates by Nuri Bilge Ceylan


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CLIMATES

Jonas Milk, Little White Lies, Issue 10, Feb/March 2007

"In the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, he has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures." This is how the Swedish academy described Turkish author Orhan Pamuk when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature at the end of last year, but it applies equally to his compatriot, Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

In his last film, Uzak, the director painted a stunning portrait of loneliness and male friendship. Now, in Climates, he turns his photographer's sensibility to the ground between men and women, to discomforting effect.

A university professor, Isa, played by Ceylan himself, decides to split from his younger girlfriend, Bahar (Ceylan's real-life wife Ebru), while on holiday. Adrift on his return to Istanbul, he has a violent sexual encounter with an ex before deciding to go to Turkey's snowbound eastern region, where Bahar is working, in order to win her back.

Though Ceylan draws heavily on Pamuk's Snow, in which an emigre poet travels to northeastern Turkey to woo an old flame in a town smothered by a blizzard, the snow in Climates seems literally colder and more isolating. While Uzak was contemplative, Climates is unsettling and pessimistic, wrong-footing the viewer with deceptive shots and edits.

Both Nobel-winning author and Cannes-garlanded filmmaker agree that snow is miraculously beautiful; Ceylan is as unerring in the manner he captures its texture and wonder as he is on the psychology of our adult relationships. And who's to say that while Pamuk, a prominent critic of the Armenian genocide, is more outspoken in his politics, in his own way, Ceylan is not making as big a point.

Anticipation.
The writer-director's previous film, Uzak, wowed audiences at Cannes in 2003. Four

Enjoyment.
The emotions may be raw, but Ceylan's artist's eye ensures it looks beautiful. Four

In Retrospect.
Men can only blame themselves if they don't heed the film' s lessons. Four

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An interview with Nuri Bilge Ceylan, writer-director-star of Climates.

LWLies: In your latest film there is a shift in the focus of relationships, though it still feels as if you're examining similar themes as Uzak.
Ceylan: Uzak was between two men, this is between a woman and a man. I have many experiences of both types of relationship, so I had many painful memories from when I was younger. If you have painful memories you want to make a film out of that, generally, if you are a filmmaker.

LWLies: It almost felt like a genre film, a thriller.
Ceylan: Really? When I do films I never start from a theory. I can change the film at every step; during the shooting, during the editing. The most difficult thing for me is to be sure about something during the shooting - when I shoot something I shoot just the opposite as well. If the woman is crying I also shoot laughing; only in the editing can I understand which one fits better for a certain place. I just try to be realistic; at the end I have only one guide, it's my soul, nothing else.

LWLies: Have you ever thought about filming something written by somebody else?
Ceylan: I would like to make adaptations, but it's not easy; sometimes writing yourself is easier. You think adapting something will be easier - I have many novels or stories that I like - but sometimes when you begin to work on it, it turns out to be more difficult. I couldn't make an adaptation yet but I want to do it some day.

LWLies: You started out as a photographer; do you continue to take photographs?
Ceylan: I like working in photography these days, it's somehow more pure. In the purest and most innocent way, you just work for art like you are a child. Nobody is expecting anything from you so I feel very happy working on my photographs. I try to make my films look like photography as much as possible - in terms of production style, not the result. I don't like too many people around, during the shoot you must keep yourself solitary as much as possible. You think better, it's more clean, more pure. On this film, I worked with 12, 14 people because of new [HD] technology, and I was acting - it was too much; I think I will make it smaller again.

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INTERVIEW : Nuri Bilge Ceylan, on relationships

Jonas Milk, Little White Lies, Issue 9, Dec2006/Jan2007

CEYLAN: It's the nature of two human beings, I think; we don't realise the importance of a thing before we lose it. When we lose it we are forced to think about it, and we can evaluate the importance of things better. I think man, at a certain age especially, wonders about himself. He wants to know himself better; he's not content so he throws himself on certain circumstances and people, and tries to understand from this crash who he is. Sometimes he has many questions about himself, and if he is with a girl he begins to see the girl as an obstacle to understanding himself better. He sees a life full of potential, full of possibilities and things like that, he wants to get rid of the girl, but when you're faced with reality after this separation he understands that the world doesn't oner that many possibilities or potential. Then he begins to miss innocence in the form of his girlfriend, like in the film.

When the couple in the film are separated and Isa [the film's main character, played by the director himself] sees that the girl can live without him - she is on her own feet, strong - he begins to respect her. But as soon as the girl comes to see him, he feels that she is dependent on him and weak again. At that moment he doesn't want her any more; he feels it will not work and everything is going to be the same as the old days again. Of course, women are not like that, women are a bit different in that sense; they have a more balanced soul, I think. They can live with less information, less things. Life gives more of a sense of mission to men, society expects more success from them. So they have a heavier weight on their shoulders.

I think the sex scene [between Isa and an ex] was necessary in this sense: it shows the characteristic of the man better. Actually, the man doesn't feel like any sex at that moment, he needs some violence to get rid of the violence inside him. He feels desperate and hopeless, there is something he cannot handle in his soul, and in order to get rid of that he pushes himself into violence, hoping that with the violence another violence can go away. But after the sex, you generally feel even worse if you don't love the girl enough, and after a kind of dirty feeling he felt during the sex he even misses the other girl more, the innocence. He thinks that what he needs is innocence, cleanness and things like that, and he realises what he's lost. I think I felt these kinds of things many times; these are the kinds of feelings I know very well, and I think most men feel the same way.