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Times and Winds (2006)

Director: Reha Erdem

Time Out rating

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4 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

With this beautifully photographed, pastoral portrait of the life, rhythms and seasons of a remote mountain village, Reha Erdem adds his name to those of Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Fatih Akin in the list of directors heading up the impressive recent revival of Turkish cinema. It’s true that the conflicts of Turkey’s poised situation – at a crossroads between Asia and Europe, tradition and modernity, secularism and religion – are reflected in the lives of its three pubescent protagonists – Omer, Yakup and Yildiz – as we experience the hardship and strictures of rural life through their variously troubled and subtly handled rites of passage. But Erdem’s film is not essentially political, despite its pointed view of patriarchy – and sexism – shown in the plans, real and imaginary, of more than one of the boys to kill their respective fathers.

Divided in five discrete chapters, to reflect the changing textures of the Muslim day punctuated by five calls to prayer, and given a modernist aura by extracts from Arvo Pärt’s orchestral compositions, Erdem’s film is finally and intriguingly undefinable – another word for original. Its play of moods is encapsulated in some spectacular scenes – the kids proclaiming poetry from the mountaintops, the capture of a solar eclipse, the sacramental birth of a calf – but the film is more than a mere lyrical celebration.

It’s characterised by an enticing and earthy transcendentalism, exemplified in its most startling motif: recurrent, mysterious static tableaux of prone, slumbering children. Buried in leaves or hugging the rocks, they could be in ecstatic communion or fusing with the natural world. More likely, Erdem’s marvellous film sees them as bridging the divide between heaven and earth.

Author: Wally Hammond

Time Out London Issue 1984, Aug 28-Sept 3 2008

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User reviews of this film

Film Snob said...

Posted on Sep 29 2010 18:14 So sorry if Erdem's film didn't feature any martial arts or car-chases. Not all films have to race along, don't you know? A brilliant piece of film making.
Those whom Mike called "ordinary folk" have plenty of other choices. I'm delighted to see something this consciously artistic in the cinema again.

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Mike said...

Posted on Oct 18 2009 20:09 A pseuds treat, but a beautifully photographed but otherwise tedious and virtually plotless night out for ordinary folk. Stay at home and watch some paint drying for a more exciting evening.

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Ian said...

Posted on Sep 13 2008 18:48 Cut the pompus music, cut half the movie and you'd have a beautiful short film. There's just not enough here to really engage, and it's all a bit obvious and tedious.

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Anthony said...

Posted on Sep 01 2008 13:21 Beautifully shot. A bit of an ordeal to sit through at the end one wonders what was the point of the whole thing

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