About Dry Grasses exists in a paradox. It takes place in a rural Turkish village in Eastern Anatolia, which pummels its working class population with endless, unforgiving snow. The people of the village stumble through man-made paths in between giant snow mounds that stretch beyond what the eye can see. But if you explore a little, find a higher point, and look out upon the landscape, you’ll see images of indescribable beauty. Only a world this relentlessly punishing can also astound with its awesome visual force. And so its inhabitants huddle inside in between glimpses of the natural world. They live in fear of what outside can do to them, but in humble astonishment with how powerfully it can hold their gaze. As their petty problems arise, one wonders how they stack up against the laws of nature.
Some can appreciate the dichotomy inherent to this world, and some cannot. School teacher Samet (Deniz Celiloglu) has no love lost for his current home. Samet comes from Istanbul, from a world of more modern commerce and convenience, where intellect is stimulated and tradition is passé. School teachers in this region must wait four years before requesting a transfer, and Samet is currently in year four. Make it to the end of the year and he can finally find a way to rid himself of this provincial purgatory, where the only joys he can find comes at the expense of others. His level of self-loathing is so extreme that he doesn’t merely project his bitterness and resentment onto others, but rather fires it off like ammunition into anyone who happens to be around him.
When Samet arrives from holiday to begin the Winter semester, he returns to his cozy home which he shares with his friend and fellow teacher, Kenan (Musab Ekici). Back in class, Samet has his pet students. In particular, he sees the pre-teen Sevim (Ece Bagci) as a possible protegé, and his outward friendliness has a touch of intimacy. His affection for Sevim has a reliable cloak of innocence, but when a classroom embarrassment puts her at odds with her favorite teacher, Samet’s kindness quickly turns to intense fury. Sevim makes an accusation that’s quickly stamped out by the region’s education director, but rumors spread fast, and Samet must move swiftly and with force in order to protect his reputation. His methods involve lying and manipulation, but most importantly erecting a level of delusion to prevent himself from acknowledging any accountability.
While the details of this movie’s plot lie in uncertainty, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan makes clear just how dishonest Samet is with others, but most especially to himself. Samet is quick to contradict behavior we’ve explicitly seen, and to stop at nothing to keep his name clear of any wrongdoing. His disdain of the village creates an outsized superiority complex, and his perception of their primitive lives and beliefs blinds him to their humanity. He doesn’t think that he’s doing anything wrong, because he can’t imagine himself ever being in a lower moral standing. It’s all a flimsy shield for intense existential dread that keeps him up at night and only makes his rage run hotter.
There’s a second plotline that runs throughout About Dry Grasses that involves a teacher in a nearby town named Nuray (Merve Dizdar). Nuray recently survived an attack from a suicide bomber, but the incident caused her to lose her leg. A friend introduces Samet to her under the guise of hooking them up. Samet isn’t interested but convinces Kenan to meet up with her instead. After all, they’re both Alawites. As Nuray and Kenan develop a closeness, Samet begins to change his mind about Nuray and contrives meetings between them. He’s unsubtle in his pursuit, making plain that he’s willing to scuttle his friend’s romance for his own carnal satisfaction. Nuray proves more rhetorically nimble than Samet expects, though, and forces him to confront himself before giving in to his advances.
Ceylan is a director known for his long, talky films set in the unforgiving winter climates of Anatolia. His 2014 film, Winter Sleep, was a chamber drama about a group of people sheltering from a winter storm. Their conversations revealed economic and political divides over 196 minutes. That film won Ceylan the Palme D’or at Cannes. About Dry Grasses is 197 minutes, and is also composed mostly of tightly framed shots of conversation. Tensions are built through the expert composition, and the actors are blocked around a camera that reveals certain things to us that the characters fail to grasp. This is a formal triumph and a visual delight, even if Ceylan’s arguments feel as obstinate and frigid as the film’s setting.
This is a very long time to spend with a character as unapologetically unpleasant as Samet, and his journey is not as thought-provoking as Ceylan envisions. Ceciloglu’s performance, creating a man of such unyielding stubbornness, is profoundly good, even if its brilliance does lend a hand as to why this film is so difficult. As Nuray, Merve Dizdar won the Best Actress prize at last year’s Cannes. It’s a performance that surprises as it goes on, culminating in a two-hand scene with Ceciloglu where they debate the nature of cynicism and morality for close to twenty straight minutes. Dizdar plays Nuray as the only person who truly sees Samet for who he is, but that enlightenment doesn’t mean she can overcome his gift for shrewd influence. She’s more mature than Samet, sure, but in her own way still covets the superficial pleasures that he can’t get enough of.
About Dry Grasses has a payoff in its conclusion, but that reward may not feel worth the price of sitting through it. Ceylan makes cogent observations about the limits of humanity, and the shallowness that comes with intelligence, but the point is made with conviction well before the final sequence. What’s most impressive about Grasses is Ceylan’s visual palette, and the ways he makes people sitting and talking so visually stunning. It’s one thing to capture that breathtaking mountainside, and quite another to make a couch a dynamic setting (a fourth-wall breaking moment near the end pays credence to the work that makes it possible). The delicacy of the storytelling undersells how monstrous Samet is as a character, but Ceylan is not interested in contriving narrative punishments for his very bad protagonist. What he makes so clear is that Samet does a good enough job of doing that to himself.
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan