Two pre-teen boys and a girl endure pain caused by the inbred generational habits of their parents in Reha Erdem's minimalist Times and Winds. Set in the remote village of Kozlu in Northern Turkey overlooking the sea, the film reflects the traditions of the culture in which it occurs, showing how parents repeat the mistakes of their own parents and those that came before them. Times and Winds is shown in five parts beginning with night and ending with morning, mirroring the daily time that is divided by the sound of the call to Salah, the compulsory ritual prayer, performed five times each day after ablution. The film stresses the importance of religion and prayer in the life of the simple villagers but it is apparently not enough of an influence to prevent them from mistreating their children.
Omer (Ozkan Ozen) holds feelings of bitterness towards his father, the local imam, who not so subtly favors his brother and is not hesitant to say how much smarter the younger boy is. Omer dreams of ways to kill his father opening the window over his bed so his cough will worsen, emptying the capsules of the medicine he is taking for his illness, pushing him over a cliff, or simply getting together a group of local scorpions to pay him a visit. Omer's best friend Yakup (Ali Bey Kayali) is upset when he sees his grandfather constantly demean his father, calling him useless and lazy. Yakup also has a crush on his teacher (Selma Ergec) and refuses to wash the thumb that is stained with the teacher's blood from a foot mishap. When the boy sees his father furtively peeking into the window of his teacher's house, he is devastated.
The boys' female cousin, Yildiz (Elit Iscan), has a strained relationship with her mother who favors her younger sister and uses her as a household slave. Though sexuality is barely touched on in the film, Yildiz is brought to confused tears when she hears her parents making love. Other scenes show the children's embarrassment when they watch animals mating in the field, reminiscent of the film Japon by Carlos Regadas, whose poetics seem to have been an influence in this film. Another boy, Davut (Tarik Sonmez), an orphan who is the town shepherd, shows the scars on his back to the town council after he is physically beaten by a villager, but can only cringe when they tell the offender that what he did was wrong but exact no punishment.
Times and Winds has a poetic look and feel with beautiful pastoral scenes of the Turkish countryside in summer captured by cinematographer Florent Herry, but shots such as the children sleeping outdoors are repeated once too often to maintain interest. While the music of Arvo Part lends atmosphere, it is overly dramatic and is used to the point where it becomes irritating and distracting. In a film of this nature where there is little narrative drive, it seems that the ambient sounds of nature would have better served the director. Times and Winds has strong performances from its non-professional cast and contains some poignant moments that can be powerful, but Erdem seems to be trying too hard and the film lacks flow and the kind of emotional pull to make it truly memorable.
