Des temps et des vents

BAS VAKIT (TIME AND WINDS) is less a narrative film than a suspended contemplation on the cycle of life, the passage of time, and the persistence of family traits. It is a work from Turkey of rare beauty visually, musically, and natural grandeur. Writer/director Reha Erdem is a poet as well as an accomplished filmmaker.

Three young children are approaching the torrents of adolescence, each carrying emotional scars and family histories that will forever alter the way they reach adulthood. Omer (Ozkan Ozen) is the son of the local imam who climbs the minaret five times a day to chant the call to prayer: Omer's younger, smarter brother is favored by the father and Omer copes with the loathing for his father by planning his death. Yakup (Ali Bey Kayali), Omer's closest friend, has a crush on his teacher (Selma Ergeç) but is deeply disillusioned when he spies on his own father (whom he has always defended against his grandfather's abuse) attempting to court his teacher. Yildiz (Elit Iscan) is a girl under-appreciated by her mother and is stunned to overhear her parents coupling. The three children attempt to engage in a normal childhood, reacting tot he beauty of the natural surroundings of their poor little village to the point of learning animal husbandry first hand! They befriend another young orphan Davut (Tarik Sonmez), the town shepherd, when he sustains physical abuse from his guardian. The sensitivity of the children's reflections of their parents' maladaptive behavior creates a bond that sustains their daily trials.

There is not a lot of narrative here, but the sensory pleasures of the film are immense. Divided into sections labeled Night, Evening, Afternoon, Noon and Morning, the film follows the marriage of the calls to worship that clock the lives of these people with the atmospheric cinematography by Florent Herry and embellished by the sumptuous musical score by Arvo Pärt. It is a long film (just short of two hours) that takes its time to unfold the mysteries of coming of age and it is a film that will haunt the viewer long after the credits have ceased. In Turkish with English subtitles. Grady Harp

Celebrated Turkish writer-director Reha Erdem followed the international success of his previous films "Kaç para kaç" and "Korkuyorum Anne" with this mesmerising cinematic study of rural daily life in the Turkish hinterland which took home top awards at both the Istanbul and Adana Golden Boll International Film Festivals and secured international distribution.

Özkan Özen proves a surprisingly talented young lead with powerful support from fellow youngster Ali Bey Kayalı and Elit İşcan who all seem incredibly natural in there roles whilst Bülent Emin Yarar heads up the adult supporting cast which includes fellow Erdem regular Taner Birsel, Yiğit Özşener and the gorgeous Selma Ergeç.

The talented filmmaker takes his title, which translates as "five times", from the 5-times daily call to prayer that regulates the daily life of the Turkish peasants at the core of this film and divides up Florent Herry's exquisitely cinematography accordingly as it flows from character to character pausing each time to take in the gorgeous Çanakkale countryside.

Can you sing the call to prayer?

This film is surprisingly balanced in many ways. It manages to have quirky, humorous characters who are still pretty real and relatable. It manages to have a young star who is likable yet also has some evil thoughts. It's beautiful and slow, but not heavy and profound.

All in all, a very worthy film. However there were a few awkward, overdone scenes that broke the spell for me. In particular, those with a father trying to make his good for nothing sons be useful. One makes do, but the other is both lazy and dumb. These characters never felt real....or even interesting.

Also, a few moments were just a little too telegraphed; a little too obvious. When a girl is running with a little baby down a steep road, for instance...hmmm, I wonder what might happen?

It depicts rural, small town life near the Turkish coast and, accordingly, moves at a pretty slow pace. Might be a bit slow for some, but should be enjoyable nonetheless. The current rating is over 9 points. Way too high, in my opinion, but this film is still a good time.

Times and Winds is a portrait of family life in rural Turkey centred on the lives of three young children: Omer, Yakup and Yildiz. The village that they live in is a slightly ramshackle affair; many houses are showing their age and the cobble roads are worn and wonky. The surroundings, on the other hand, are sumptuously beautiful, ranging from lush green woodland to spectacular rocky cliffs and the gloriously shining sea. Director Reha Erdem uses Steadycam to track the characters as they travel through the village and the countryside, creating a sense that the little settlement and its grand surroundings are a seamless, congruous whole.

The village, however, is not a harmonious place: there is great distrust between different generations, from the oldest to the youngest, and Omer, Yakup and Yildiz are caught up in this. The three young children all earn the displeasure and disappointment of their elders, and in turn become disillusioned and resentful.

Omer's father, a local imam, is ever disappointed with his eldest son, and does little to hide his preference for Ali, Omer's bright younger brother. Omer begins to devise ways of killing his father, who is already suffering under the effects of a disease. Meanwhile, Yakup, Omer's close friend, is upbraided by his father, the muezzin, for trying to steal cigarettes, but finds – to his dismay – that he is being lectured by a moral hypocrite. The women in the village are not free from this futile cycle where the old alienate the young and the young resent the old: Yildiz, an intelligent young girl, has to look after her baby sibling on behalf of her mother, and suffers increasingly under the stress of this responsibility.

It is no wonder that in their complicated, unrewarding family lives these children yearn for an escape, and so they gather together in the wilderness around their village to plot and play and dream. Recurring images show the young children lying prone – dead or asleep – out in the wilderness, a sad reflection of a world where they already feel like a disappointment.

That is not to say that this is a wholly bleak portrait of life in rural Turkey. It is cheering to see the work done by the village committee members, who gather together to discuss pressing local issues. They condemn the beating of a local shepherd boy by his acting father and they organise the building of a new roof for an elderly lady as the winter sets in. There are also some very funny moments in Times and Winds, including the scenes where the children giggle over procreating animals. Even these scenes, however, are ultimately permeated with the same sadness found throughout the film: the boys catch the girls watching a pair of copulating horses and chase them away, in the belief that girls should not be allowed to see such things. In a place where religious figures such as the imam and the muezzin fall far short of the lofty ideals to which they aspire it is sad to see the wrong-headed behaviour inspired in these children.

The film finds the perfect accompaniment in the music of Finnish composer Arvo Part. The sombre, haunting strings that swell periodically throughout Times and Winds mingle with the sounds of nature and of everyday life, and fittingly reflect the torment of human relationships against the most serene and beautiful of backdrops. Though nearly two hours long and driven by only the loosest of plots, Times and Winds does not feel like a slow film. There are so many characters and incidents that the film can be a little confusing in places, but it is relentlessly engaging. Times and Winds is all the more remarkable film for having come seemingly out of nowhere and it will hopefully win some much-deserved attention for new Turkish cinema.

While there's nothing wrong with creating a film that says life is pretty much a drag for young people who are innocent victims of their parents and grandparents traditional ways, this film beats the theme to death.

For me, the film primarily rings with one quality: hopelessness. Filled with symbolism designed, I believe, to express the filmmaker's view that the preadolescents we meet are pretty much resigned to life as it is, and without even a hint that they have any way out of their situation, the film, while photographed beautifully, and with competent acting by most of the characters, emerges as little more than a turgid overview of a rural life that few westerners have been witness to on the screen.

There are far better films that do the same thing. I think of Bicycle Thieves, of the Apu trilogy, of Sugar Cane Alley, and of several other titles that bare witness to humans (young people especially) living lives of "quiet desperation" (as Thoreau put it), but which do so in ways that indicate the reasons, and which also present their characters as people who at least make an attempt to struggle against a situation they little understand and of which they are the victim.

Don't avoid the Times and Winds. See it, but do so as a lesson in how an inadequate film could have been so much more.

Dan Bessie / danbes@volcano.net