In his latest cinematic feat, acclaimed Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan once again immerses us in the stark beauty and philosophical contemplations of rural Anatolia. Ceylan has rightfully earned recognition as one of today’s true auteur filmmakers through his precise aesthetic and novelistic narratives, which probe at questions of truth and human complexity.
In “About Dry Grasses,” Ceylan introduces us to Samet, a disenchanted teacher assigned to a remote eastern village for four wintry years. Samet builds a questionable bond with his student Sevim, which leads to vague accusations of misconduct. Yet Ceylan remains less fixated on any abuse of power and more interested in using the premise to peel back the layers of Samet’s contradictions – his artistic yearnings, competitive jealousy toward his friend Kenan, and debates over individualism with the teacher Nuray.
Ceylan patiently unveils this complex protagonist while bathing the film in his signature visual poetry – the snowy vistas and montages of photography pointing to half-glimpsed truths. He also shows a more daring, mischievous side, with a stunning twist that exposes the constructed nature of Samet’s perspective. In its nearly 3 1/2 hour run, “About Dry Grasses” may meander but is never aimless. It attests to Ceylan’s mastery at harnessing time itself to immerse us into his richly observed worlds.
Seeking Truth Among the Elements
Like the stark beauty of the Anatolian steppes that provide its backdrop, “About Dry Grasses” offers no easy answers. Yet it provokes us to ponder life’s essential questions – is truth absolute or fragmentary? Should we embrace hope or recoil into despair?
Ceylan suggests truth itself is tinged by the teller’s limited perspective. No one viewpoint or artistic expression, be it Samet’s photography or Nuray’s paintings, unveils the whole of reality. The film reminds us even its own unfolding narrative is an artificial construction, with Ceylan daringly breaking illusion in one meta-moment.
The land’s harshness echoes that of its people. Winter’s snowbound isolation gives way to summer’s baking grassland, two extremes suggesting life here allows little middle ground. Samet floats cynically between state oppressors and idealist dissidents, while nuray chides him for not picking a side to help “this wretched world.”
Most profoundly, Ceylan balances hope with weariness. Nuray insists each person must contribute something to justice, however small. Yet self-absorbed Samet doubts anything can truly change. In this tension between nurturing deluded beliefs or accepting futility, Ceylan refuses easy answers. The truthful path lies somewhere in the conflicted soil between fruitless principles and arid indifference. Like the dry grasses themselves, redemption may wither and revive with the seasons.
Getting Under the Skin
At the story’s center swirls our antihero Samet, whom Deniz Celiloglu invests with no small measure of our sympathy despite his glaring faults. Celiloglu crafts a man unable to reconcile his intellectual vanity with suburban malaise. Assigned to educate the “uncultured” rural youth, Samet belittles the very minds he should enrich. Yet his misplaced kindness toward student Sevim lays bare his deeper need to prove his worth by winning devotion.
When accusations arise, Celiloglu reveals not a lurid monster but a feeble soul whose smirking denials barely mask his shame. And as jealousy poisons Samet’s kinship with roommate Kenan, glimmers emerge of one starving for companionship. In Celiloglu’s hands, Ceylan’s novelistic nuance blooms into a man less malicious than paralyzed from nurturing the goodness within reach.
As Nuray, Merve Dizdar provides stirring counterpoint with her fiercely insightful teacher. Dizdar, whose real-life activism informed her role, lends galvanizing force and wit to Nuray’s principles. When she and Celiloglu spar philosophically, one senses not opposed enemies but alienated kindred spirits separated by pride. Their clashing ideals carry erotic tension, two attracted minds that cannot concur if one self-absorbed man can also be society’s responsibility.
Young Ece Bagci likewise stuns as the student Sevim, maturing from Samet’s cheerful pet to a girl forced by disillusion to imagine her power. And as Kenan, Musab Ekici extracts genuine pathos from a friend perpetually relegated to second position in Samet’s pinch-hearted life. In Ceylan’s patient hands, each player emerges through time as more than embodiment of ideas but flesh-and-blood seekers of purpose.
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A Novelist’s Brushstrokes
In sculpting a near-three hour character study, Ceylan abandons any fealty to commercial pacing. Yet his patient, novelistic strokes handsomely reward those who surrender to his vision. Entire scenes dwell not on events but on the meanings gleaned through lengthy conversations. The camera observes unhurried tableaus where ideas themselves become dramatic action, as when Samet and Nuray parse political responsibility via ethical debate.
Through relaxed editing rhythms and extended takes, Ceylan plants us within each scene to soak up telling details. Characters create whole interior worlds unto themselves, rarely interrupted by cuts unless to reorient our attention. When the camera suddenly closes in on a face or pivots around the room, the effect jars us into fresh eyes.
Ceylan also unveils a more mischievous side, bending his style to suit the tale’s tricky point of view. In one inventive sequence, he exposes the fiction behind Samet’s self-flattering lens by having cast and crew wander casually into the shot. Reminding us no truth escapes some willful framing, Ceylan pulls the rug out from under Samet’s carefully arranged reality.
Yet perhaps Ceylan’s boldest flourish comes when he breaks the fourth wall entirely. As Samet ponders a world that has turned against him, Celiloglu gazes directly into the camera before Ceylan cuts to reminders of the illusion. In laying bare his construct with postmodern glee, Ceylan brings his style full circle to underscore how even his own towering edifice contains only visions shaped through a glass, darkened.
Resonant Steppe Toward Truth
In the end, “About Dry Grasses” lingers powerfully not for resolving its provocations but for the questions that persist. As with the sparse title landscape itself, the film resists the fleeting bloom of easy judgment.
Rather, Ceylan leaves us to sit with the doubts that shadow our grasp of truth – both human and artistic. No singular perspective unveils reality absolutely. Yet might sincere expressions still point us collectively toward some essential insight?
Samet’s ultimate fate matters less than how his turmoil has altered our vision. And if the weary Souls of Anatolia find no saving grace here, they stand not condemned but seen – their dignity preserved by one who accepts limits in capturing time’s ongoing glory.
As to Ceylan’s canon, “Dry Grasses” ranks among his most formally adventurous works while revisiting signature themes. The exotic locale grows intimate through his patient eye. If the film ambles, it does so with assurance rather than self-indulgence – each lengthy take blooms toward silently detonating revelations in look and gesture.
Some may bristle at the onionskin layers required to reach the film’s steely core. But Ceylan knows truths, like people, don’t easily unveil themselves before strangers. What lies beneath often surprises, the soil proving far richer than the charted terrain. For the receptive, “About Dry Grasses” offers not just achievement but invitation – to ponder the unrest below life’s surfaces, there finding our footsteps gaining purposeful pace.
The Review
About Dry Grasses
Like the sparse grass emerging from winter's barren soil, "About Dry Grasses" grows slowly but rewardingly into a landscape that lingers in the mind. Through visual poetry and moral complexity, Nuri Bilge Ceylan has crafted another meditative triumph worthy of its Cannes accolades. If its lengthy run time and opaque protagonist occasionally test patience, patient viewers will discover a layered, living inquiry into the nature of truth and the possibility of hope amid stark realities.
PROS
- Powerful lead performance by Deniz Celiloglu
- Striking cinematography and use of the Anatolian landscape
- Philosophically rich screenplay that provokes thought
- Novelistic storytelling approach and intricate narrative
- Thematically resonant ideas about truth and perspective
- Formally inventive direction by Ceylan
CONS
- Overlong running time that tests viewers' patience
- Uneven pacing that drags in sections
- Opaque and unlikable protagonist may frustrate some
- Lack of narrative resolution around abuse allegations
