About Dry Grasses

A photographer with intellectual pretensions, Samet (Deniz Celiloglu) can’t wait to serve his fourth and final year teaching elementary school in a rural backwater in eastern Turkey. Returning from a too-brief vacation, he’s embroiled in a controversy when his favourite student, Sevim (Ece Bagci), accuses him of inappropriate behaviour. Meanwhile he’s drawn to a colleague from a nearby school, Nuray (Merve Dizdar); more so, when she seems to favour his roommate, Kenan…

Over the last two decades Nuri Bilge Ceylan has established himself as one of the masters of world cinema, renowned for films of Chekhovian subtlety and depth (Winter Sleep; The Wild Pear Tree; Once Upon a Time in Anatolia). His latest is a lacerating portrait of a narcissist who seemingly can’t stop himself form sowing discord and disaster. Comparisons to Lolita are justified; About Dry Grasses compels us to identify with a creep, even as it asks pointed questions about subjectivity, empathy and deep-rooted cultural divides. That Samet can also be read as a stand in for Ceylan himself (also an acclaimed photographer) gives some indication of the film’s considerable sophistication.