Cooler Climate (A)

The most honest moment in this movie is when Ivory tells of meeting two older Afghan men who befriended him quickly and invited him home, where Ivory was left wondering if they might want sex with him. They didn’t, or so it would seem, but Ivory describes a mixture of desire and dread that seems to have been characteristic of him then and is also characteristic of this documentary.

“A Cooler Climate” ends abruptly with a description of Ivory meeting Merchant, and there is a photo of Merchant staring adoringly at Ivory that maybe says it all about their relationship. For fans of Ivory’s films, “A Cooler Climate” reveals more about him than his memoir did, but on certain subjects he remains as tight-lipped as he needed to be in his youth.

Dan Callahan

Trailer..