About Dry Grasses

Throughout the film, in which excellent photography and portrait work have a considerable weight, all the faces we encounter in the photographic frames, in a sense, develop the character-oriented theme of the film. We are faced with an extraordinary story with a great scenario, centering on a handful of teachers in a snow-covered village in Anatolia. Nuri Bilge Ceylan portrays the crises of the limited lives of characters who feel stuck in the countryside. It is even possible to call it a trilogy about anti-heroes looking for a better life elsewhere. In fact, we can say that it is a complete Nuri Bilge Ceylan style movie. The long duration that we are familiar with from his previous films, dialogues lasting 20-25 minutes, extraordinary shots, gloom, characters talking sarcastically to each other, and the "realistic tension" created by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, which I believe cannot be achieved through acting. Those who know, know that it's like the moment in No Country for Old Men when Javier Bardem decides not to kill the old employee at the gas station by flipping a coin in the gas station scene. But the most important thing in this scene was that the old man at the gas station had no idea what was going on. It was a great scene that made us tense. In my opinion, the long dialogues between Demet Akbag and Haluk Bilginer in Winter Sleep, Dogu Demirkol and Serkan Keskin in the The Wild Pear Tree, and Deniz Celiloglu and Merve Dizdar on the About Dry Grasses, give the film its real value. Again, as a similarity, the hatred of the sub-characters of the film towards the main character is at the forefront. In Three Monkeys, the son of the house, Ahmet Rifat Sungar's hatred towards his parents, Emirhan Doruktutan, who plays Nejat Isler's son in Winter Sleep, has hatred and grudge towards Haluk Bilginer for humiliating his father, and Ece, who portrays the character of Sevim perfectly, About Dry Grasses. This grudge comes across with Bagci. The result is a thought-provoking and gripping film that delves deep into the human psyche, explores the moral complexities and multifaceted nature of human relationships. It was worth my wait.

I strongly believe that the main story of the film is Samet's longing for a pure and innocent love. And that longing flourish itself on a young, smart and beautiful girl. Samet knows the possibility of experiencing such a love will not come true. I think Samet's interest in Sevim throughout the movie, without resorting to sexuality, is the main subject of the movie. Of course, you may think that the reason for not touching into sexuality is cowardice and taboo. Maybe so. But looking at Samet's immediate rejection of the commander's request to find him a wife, his passing of Nuray to his roommate, and his failure to remember that the ugly Kurdish girl was from his own class, I see that this is not a sexual hunger but an emotional hunger. Of course, we can put on our 'Sigmund Freud' hat and say 'the origin of love is sexual desire'. It would also be true. However, looking at the fact that middle-aged Samet made love with Nuray just to gain superiority over his roommate, I came to the conclusion that he had feelings for Sevim mainly out of emotional motivation, not sexual motivation. He is smart enough not to make a move, but to wait for Sevim to make the first move. Samet, who could not find someone for himself in the big city life and realized that the so-called soul mate is a lie and false dream, throws all his dreams and old disappointments on Sevim's shoulder. He is aware that this is an illusion, and that Sevim will make mistakes and get dirty as she grows up, just like him and other people. However, the hope that he has lost from his peers can find itself in a heart-warming, beautiful smile in a young girl. The fact that he doesn't even remember the name of the ugly Kurdish girl, and the fact that the camera stays on the ugly girl for 0.5 seconds and pans to Sevim in the last scene are short but striking details. Sevim is more beautiful and coquettish than her classmates. I think this made her stand out in Samet's eyes in the monotony of the eastern geography. I also want to criticize the movie, mainly for Nuri Bilge's shallow look at Turkish politics. He always did hide behind safe doors without talking about any of the matters in public. While people getting jailed and kicked out of from their jobs, he remained loyal to Turkish government so he could get funding for his movies. So I am not buying whatever he has to say about Turkish left wing. He can't understand what these people have been thorough. However, his ability to tell the story of middle aged man's love and desire to an under age girl struck me in a certain way. I mean, I never expected this much honesty and risk-taking to come from NBC. The wild pear tree struck me from the beginning to the end with the overall quality of the movie, but this movie hit me from a different place. Even though I wanted to criticize the movie a little more, the thing that remains in my memory most strongly after half an hour of watching it is the fact that NBC is one of the best directors alive today.

I liked the movie very much, all the characters are in shades of grey. No character is an angel, no character is evil. We are watching a slice of real life. We find a piece of ourselves in every character. For example, I was very angry with the director of national education at the beginning of the movie. When the movie was over, I agreed with those bureaucrats. The movie is long so it is difficult to watch it at home. Concentration is required to watch the movie. I think you should definitely watch the movie in the movie theater. Otherwise you will think it's exaggerated. The acting is good, but I don't understand why Merve Dizdar received an award.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan creates another masterful movie with interesting themes that explores the moralities of people and selfishness, great camerawork, strong writing and performances throughout. Ceylan's movies are well-known for being slow cinema and long films but Ceylan's great on capturing the atmosphere of Turkey and his writing really strikes up to it's height. Many of the themes explored within this movie was well-executed, investing, and even with it's long runtime, the narrative never felt boring with each scene and moment being purposeful without wasting any time. The camerawork is amazing. The visual presentation and production is good. Each of the performances from the cast members, including the child actors are amazing as each performance was realistic and raw. The dialogue is outstanding as each of the dialogue between characters, conversations and lines spoken were well-written and each having a purpose to it's setting. Nuri Bilge Ceylan has become one of my favorite Turkish filmmakers as Ceylan has made some really impressive movies in the seasons of Turkish cinema. Overall, I absolutely love this movie.

It's a character drama about truth and lies in modern times in rural Eastern Turkey during a harsh winter. It follows various teachers who are required to work in a remote area before transferring to more desirable urban locations. Samet (Deniz Celiloglu) is a fourth-year art teacher in primary school who can't wait to transfer out. His friend, Kenan (Musab Ekici), is his housemate and a fellow teacher. Samet seems to be popular with his students, especially Sevim (Ece Bagci), an attractive grade-eight student to whom he has given presents. Initially, we learn of the rigidity and bureaucratic nature of the educational system through Samet's interactions with his superintendent, Bekir (Onur Berk Arslanoglu) and the Director of Education (Yildirim Gucuk). One day, the school administration confiscates a love letter that Sevim has written, and Samet comes into possession of it, though he claims to Sevim that he has destroyed it. Her distrustful reaction creates difficulties both for Samet and Kenan. A distraction for Samet and Kenan is Nuray (Merve Disdar), a female teacher at a nearby school who lost a leg in a terrorist bombing some years before. Samet and Kenan are interested in Nuray, though both are devious in their procedures. Throughout, there are lengthy conversations about how to make the most impact on the world, with the apparent options being risking action or sitting back and observing with a cynical eye. The Roger Ebert reviewer called "About Dry Grasses" "steadily paced, richly intellectual, and absorbingly acted." I found it pretentious, at least an hour too long at three hours and twenty minutes, and trapped in too many plot ambitions. Celiloglu, Bagci, and Disdar perform very well, though one conversation between Samet and Nuray is interminable. I suspect the subtitle translation is not the best; some Turkish speakers in the audience, when I watched, heard humorous references not reflected in the subtitles.

After Merve Dizdar received her award for best actress at Cannes, my expections were even higher for this NBC film, which was already high, due to his track record for some of the best Turkish films in recent years. And after watching it twice this week, I can safely say that the film lived to all of my expectations. The plot, as his other films', may seem a bit ordinary, but once again the movie reflects a great depth of some personalities and multi perspective look to some of the facts that exist in a typical east Anatolian village today. The scenario is very successful in capturing and reflecting some social dilemmas that many viewers will find themselves a part of, with some well prepared scripts that lead to very natural flowing deep dialogues, which are very well played by the leading actress and actor, and other actors. Not to mention elaborate visuals, which bas already become an NBC signature, but this time smartly decorated with some strikingly beautiful still shots, most probably by NBC himself or his wife Ebru Ceylan, also a co-writer of the film. Snow has always been NBC's favorite background, but this time he has used it with some early or late hour shots that gave some beautiful visual effects. Similar to his Winter Sleep movie, usage of warm, low dim indirect lighting in some otherwise poor looking (or humble at best) places once again had resulted in painting like scenes, which also highlighted and emphasized some gestures of the actors/actress. The title of my review is actually one of Nuray's lines at her closing scenes, which striked me most, among many others during the film. Although it seems to be directed to Kenan, it actually summarizes Samet's seeningöy never ending unrest. I can safely say that this film represents a high point in NBC's successful career and will hopefully get more awards because it simply deserves it fully.

Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan is probably the most confrontationally ambitious filmmaker working today. This doesn't necessarily make him the best. Indeed, there are times when you can feel him reaching for a greatness that the likes of Arichitapong Weerasthakul or Bela Tarr make seem easy. Nonetheless, Ceylan takes on the "Big Themes" with a Herculean boldness. He's the "old school great film artist" of today. His work sometimes feels like it belongs more in the era of Bergman or Bresson than today, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. Ceylan's new film, "About Dry Grasses", is one of his best. The main character, Samet (played by Deniz Celiloglu in an at times overly intense performance), incarnates many of Ceylan's consistent concerns. Like many of the director's characters he is a secular intellectual, or at least he is striving to be one, to throw off the non-secular culture around him. In this, these characters reflect Turkey itself, a predominantly geographically and culturally Asian, Muslim nation that, since the inception of its modern state, has openly striven to become a secular, European one. He thinks too much, which is not to say too well, but this thoughtfulness is often a disguise or an excuse for a resentful selfishness. Indeed, Samet is one of Ceylan's least likable main characters. At times, his actions disgust us. But the wisdom of the film comes with the acknowledgement that the decisions made by this quasi-anti-villain do not, in fact, amount to actual villainy. Samet is not who he, or we, wish him to be. But neither is humanity, or the world it inhabits. Time, the fact that life literally goes on despite our intentions, bestows on the living the transformative ability to apologize and forgive. (Hannah Arendt would, I think, have liked this movie.) Ceylan is one of cinema's greatest landscape artists. Although "About Dry Grasses" consists mostly of interiors, the exterior scenes are breath taking. The small village Samet teaches in is supposed to be bleak and ugly and in some sense it is. But there is a sublimity to the revelation of these monotonous snow-scapes. Ceylan's landscapes give his films a singularly sensual quality. A viewer feels the chill of the town and the relief of a building with central heating or, to a less relieving degree, a fire, stove, or cup of hot tea. When winter finally breaks it seems a kind of existential reprieve. One last note, while this is very much Samet's story, Celiloglu's is not the film's best performance. That goes to the Cannes-award-winning Merve Dizdar, whose performance is as smoldering as that of Celiloglu's, but also decidedly more restrained. The supporting cast, including young Ece Bagci, are generally excellent.

Fresh fallen snow in a girl's sable hair, radiant mountains all along the horizon, flickering streetlights of a small town, ancient Roman columns, stunningly deep and beautiful artwork, ominous dark cliffs, mesmerizing photographic portraits, and ethereal colors of twilight. About Dry Grasses is worth seeing for the cinematography alone. An art teacher in a remote mountain village, Samet, is the subject of a schoolgirl crush. Or so he believes. When Samet confiscates the love note of his pet, Sevim, a school-led investigation into favoritism ensues. How quickly the tables are turned. Sevim gives Samet a well-deserved schooling of his own. Sevim's lesson to Samet is nowhere near the end of the film. Many times in About Dry Grasses the tables are turned like this; in lengthy back-and-forth conversations, twists in perspectives, harsh judgments walked-back, the landscape turning from deep snow to dry grass, and in the characters themselves. The film is delightfully deep (my mind is still turning). And long (over three hours). I am amazed at how the actors memorized the many, long, complex, and rapid-fire dialogues. The subjects of the talks are fascinating too (about the flicker of light beyond what is visible, following rules or not, and security forces taking people away in modern Turkey). Even while these deep conversations are occurring and the actors are doing amazingly well, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan provides jaw-dropping backgrounds. There is a scene with the characters collecting spring water at a cliff side with spectacularly beautiful snow-covered mountains all around them. It is so beautiful I couldn't concentrate. My head is still spinning. His other films, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Winter Sleep, and The Wild Pear Tree, are like this too. About Dry Grasses first surfaced at Cannes. I watched the North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It's tiring. One of Nuri Bilge's films with the most lines. As with every film of his, he highlights cinematography, with landscapes and photographs taking center stage. However, the recurring theme of provincial life is becoming tedious. I feel the director is taking the easy way out here. It seems like he's following a template, just filling in the blanks. Moreover, the constant interruption of the film with portrait photographs seemed meaningless to me, giving it a documentary feel. It was unnecessary. I'm also getting tired of the recurring theme in Nuri Bilge's films where the main character, an 'intellectual', struggles to adapt to provincial life. There are some new elements in this film, like social media, and issues like harassment and mob culture. However, I believe the portrayal of pedophilia in this film is misguided. In countries like Turkey where these issues are real, depicting them as falsehoods in movies seems absurd to me. It should have been the opposite, confronting the perpetrators. But Nuri Bilge's disregard for such issues and his mockery of the 'me too' movement is well known. Only the Cannes jury seems to appreciate this attitude.

Unfortunately, NBC is suffering to create a story... It is only a disappointment. The quality of the camera view is very poor. In the middle of the movie, Samet left the scene and entered to the set. Probably, NBC did it to keep the audience on alert. It was a terrible idea, it can be more creative and exciting. Also, I don't understand why Nuray's character was given an award. Any woman who did what she did (amputee or not) would not be welcome. Feminism should not be such a simplistic ideology. I am so sorry for my valuable 3 hours. I did not understand why is this film highly rated in Cannes.