Film Reviews

Times And Winds

• Rating:
• Director: Reha Erdem
• Starring: Ali Bel Kayali
• Details: Turkey / 111mins (TBC).

To put it bluntly, when it comes to film, more often than not, I'm a 'say what you have to say and fuck off' kind of guy, and directors who tend to linger long after they've made their point annoy me off no end. Although Reha Erdem's Times And Winds veers close to annoying me, it doesn't - but it's a close call. In a meandering story, the plot of Times And Winds takes place somewhere in the Turkish countryside where a myriad of characters go about their day-to-day business. The most interesting of which is little Omer, who hates his sick father so much he dreams up different ways of killing him - leaving a window open on a cold night when the doctor told him to keep warm; opening up his pills and pouring the medicine down the drain. An unsentimental rites of passage film, there's a lot to like about this - there are loads of lovingly shot images of the countryside and village to enjoy - but not enough, as the unfocussed story doesn't have interesting characters to prop it up. Times and Winds can be dressed up - it can be called lyrical, patient, understated, low-key, an auteur's vision, etc. For me, however, it comes down to this one simple point: for about a minute, I thought I'd sat on the DVD remote, pausing the film by mistake. I hadn't.

Review by Gavin Burke