Climates

Nuri Bilge Ceylan writes, directs and stars with his wife, Ebru Ceylan, in a beautifully crafted and artfully unpleasant Turkish drama of an unraveling relationship between a pretentious and presumptuous middle-aged academic and his younger TV producer girlfriend. The brittle tensions reach a breaking point on their summer vacation on the gorgeous Aegean coast. He seems hardly able to hide his contempt while her daydreams are swallowed up nightmares of being (quite literally) smothered by him. The pitch-perfect direction and the crisp but lonely images create an uncomfortable and awkward intimacy, which Ceylan eases with moments of wry humor and a melancholy sense of missed opportunities. In Turkish with English subtitles. The disc includes the featurette "The Making of 'Climates,'" footage from the Cannes screening and video interviews with director/actor Nuri Bilge Ceylan and actor Ebru Ceylan.