Review | Times And Winds

Times And Winds (Bes Vakit)
Cert: 15
Evening Standard review by Derek Malcolm

Dir: Reha Erdem. Cast: Ozkan Ozen, Ali Bey Kayali, Elit Iscan, Selma Ergec, Tarik Sonmez

Description: Vivid portrait of the hopes and dreams of three youngsters who live in a remote Turkish hillside community on the country's northwest coast. Omer, best pal Yakup and Yildiz hang out together after school, chewing over their humdrum routines and the people shaping their futures, including their beautiful teacher and the local shepherd boy Davut with a secret crush. An ill wind blows across the hillside, compelling the youngters to make difficult decisions.
Country: TURK. 2006. 111mins


Village people in Times and Winds
By Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard 28.08.08


Though painfully slow to ignite and poetically portentous on occasions, Reha Erdem’s film about three children growing up in a remote Anatolian village, isolated by high mountains, has an impressive edge to it. It is shot with great care for the harsh beauty of the terrain, and seeks to show us both the travails of daily existence and the pain of adolescence.

Omer, the son of the sick local imam, wishes for the death of a father who prefers his daughter to himself. He’s quite willing to force the issue by secretly throwing away his medicine. Yacob has a crush on his young teacher and begins to feel the same way as Omer when he catches his father spying on her. Yildiz, being a girl, has to see to household chores as well as studying.

The village scene is painted with a kind of resignation that seems to believe that the rhythms of the seasons and the five daily calls to prayer have a formative impact on its young characters, even at play on the mountains. Erdem’s film is nothing if not ruminative and always beautiful to look at.