About Dry Grasses [2023]

 Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s smouldering new epic About Dry Grasses was, at once, expansive and focused. On one hand, its grand vistas, runtime of nearly 3 ½ hours, and a slow-burn narrative with a temporal arc of few months imbued it with the touches of a Dostoevskian novel that gradually unravels, thus allowing unhurried evocations of a brooding atmosphere and undercurrents; on the other, with just four key characters, remote Anatolian outpost setting, and fiercely tense and ominous crux, it had the air of a moody and mysterious Chekhovian tale. Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), the film’s rivetingly etched protagonist – an art teacher at a primary school who loves photography and is craving to relocate to Istanbul – is a quintessential protagonist in the Turkish maestro’s oeuvre in how he’s a bitter, petulant, complicated, misfit, borderline misanthrope with an artistic bent. Two intersecting strands define his last few months in this village that he deplores, even while capturing its harsh beauty and weather-beaten residents, which are demonstrated via stunning tableaux vivant. He has developed a close bond with fourteen-year-old female student Sevim (Ece Bağcı) – Ceylan avoids interpreting the relationship beyond what we see – that leads to charges of inappropriate behaviour being levelled against him. Meanwhile, he befriends Nuray (Merve Dizdar), a captivating art teacher at another school and Marxist activist who lost a leg in a bomb attack, who he becomes infatuated with when she starts getting close to his colleague and roommate Kenan (Musab Ekici). This magnificently shot and brilliantly enacted film – simmering with weariness and desolation – comprised of striking verbal encounters and a bravura single-take sequence where Sevim makes a temporary Brechtian detour from the movie frame into the adjoining sets.

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Genre: Drama/Rural Drama/Psychological Drama

Language: Turkish

Country: Turkey