Under Ceylan's dull direction and the equally leaden editing, technical contributions are lackluster and straight-forward. Similar to the script, they only serve to distend an undernourished central story.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Technically, it rewards with nothing less than painterly cinematography and a seamless surge of organic soundscapes, but the story is entirely predicated on a weather metaphor so obvious that even an unplugged Doppler radar could detect it.
Contrary to what you may read elsewhere, Climates is not a masterpiece, a word that gets pompously thrown around a lot at pictures few paying customers actually want to see. It is, rather, a meticulous study of a crumbling relationship, marked by many luminous small moments and a startling interruption of violent eroticism.
Immaculately shot and composed as always, and moving at Ceylan's usual measured pace, this one is slightly enlivened by more likable perfs and a trim 98-minute running time.
A terrific movie in the Antonioni tradition, Climates confirms 47-year-old Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan as one of the world's most accomplished filmmakers--handling the end of a relationship and the cloud of human confusion rising from its wreckage as if the subject had never before been attempted.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
Like Ceylan's earlier films, Climates is as gorgeous as it is self-consciously composed, but an hour and 40 minutes is a long time to spend with Isa, forget three seasons.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Exquisitely structured, pitiless study of a middle-aged man trapped in a stagnant emotional weather pattern.
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
This film paints a haunting portrait of existential solitude, one in which the images speak louder and often more forcefully than do any of the words.
Though Climates lacks "Distant's" haunted, poetic melancholy, it has a vivid, sensual texture that's unmistakably Ceylan's. He's one of those rare directors who doesn't need a credit for identification.
As with "Distant," the dialogue is minimal, the takes are long, the narrative is laconic (too much so for many viewers, I imagine) and the cinematography is painterly.