Camden Cinema: Times and WInds

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 28 August 2008

Ozkan Özen as Ömer and Ali Bey Kayali as Yakup in Times and Winds

Mind-blowing views, but traditional ways become a real drag

TIMES AND WINDS
Directed by Reha Erdem
Certificate 15

THE vistas in Times and Winds make the movie. This slow-paced film is beautifully shot but bites off such chunky topics it is at times rather indigestible.
The setting is a small village, sandwiched by thunderous mountain peaks on one side and an ocean on the other. The sheer scale of the world these villagers live in is sub-consciously burned on their minds on a daily basis – it makes their human needs seem petty.
A Turkish-made film that has done the rounds of the European film festival circuit and been well received, Times and Winds focuses on three friends struggling to fulfil the wishes of their families as they enter adulthood.
With the call to prayer puncturing their days, the village has a rhythm that its inhabitants conform to. Family relationships are the same, and director Reha Erdem uses the rhythm of the call to prayer and of the seasons that dictate the work they do to show the settled nature of the community he is observing on works.
We meet the three main characters as they stumble through a regimented childhood. Omer, Yildiz and Yakup have all been shaped by the community: parents are harsh, with beatings frequent, fathers preferring sons, and mothers teaching their daughters to be happy with their rather scant lot in the grand scheme of things.
Omer’s father is the village Imam and Omer harbours a deep hatred towards him, wishing him dead. Yakup is also struggling with violent emotions. Yildiz is facing life as a drudge, trying to balance her own desire for education, while looking after her baby brother and helping with housework, which she is told in no uncertain terms is what is facing her for the rest of her life.
While well acted, shot and believable, it’s also weary: the acceptance of the mores of your forefathers simply because it has always been that way grates after a while.

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