By Matthew Moorcroft

Highest Recommendation

• Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
• Starring Deniz Celiloglu, Merve Dizdar, Musab Ekici, Ece Bagci
• Not Rated

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ABOUT DRY GRASSES, MAINLY IN THE THIRD ACT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Some disclosure – the onslaught of reviews that have hit over the past month or so have all been on backlog post-festival, and while I tried to get as many out quickly as I could life gets in the way, so many of them, particularly the later ones, are coming quite late.

And throughout it all, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about About Dry Grasses, the latest from acclaimed Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan (and my first experience with said filmmaker to boot). While the festival had numerous standouts, this one has been a particularly tough nut to crack in terms of my own thoughts. It’s a dense, heavy work, even more so then usual then my usual viewing experiences, which makes it something that I let live in my head rent free for weeks just so I can be able to put these thoughts down on paper, or computer as it were.

Ceylan, who seems to specialize in stories about the worst kind of people you can think of, immediately grabs your attention here with the snowy, almost tundra esqe environment of Eastern Turkey. It’s a remote area, where everybody knows everybody and nobody wants to be there, even less so our main character who just wants to pack up and head for Istanbul as soon as humanly possible. Our introduction to him is one of two sides – a side that he puts on in front of people, which is that of a reliable, if somewhat strict, teacher for his students, and the side that only we see. That side is of a egotistical douchebag, concerned more for his own reputation then actually giving people the time of day. He’s easily scorned, quick to upset, and jealous. And he’s also wickedly compelling.

At 197 minutes, About Dry Grasses demands your fullest attention and patience. It’s one of those works that tells you to meet it at it’s wavelength, not yours, and for those willing to meet it, they’ll find a film that is more playful then you would expect for a film with this kind of subject matter. The hook of the film, not revealed until about an hour in, allows for that sole event to be the catalyst for every action the characters take from that point onwards. For the first hour, it’s just chill time. For the next two, it’s damage control.

It helps that it’s just supremely well written. Ceylan’s script reads almost like real life, with conversation going on for well over 10 minutes at points and having numerous points of roundabout thinking and repeating phrases. A dinnertable scene in the third act in particular, which uses this realistic layout to begin a discussion about left-wing politics, personal empathy, and the current state of affairs in Turkey that soon becomes an interrogation on our lead character, and then an examination of how we as an audience consume the material. While Ceylan is a master craftsman in the shot and framing department, it’s really his dialogue that sings and I continuously found myself enthralled by it.

If this review seems a bit ramblier and unfocused, or even unprofessional, then it’s mainly because I’m still not entirely sure how to interpret many of About Dry Grasses‘ more oblique and obtuse scenes. A fourth wall break in the third act, one that comes out of nowhere and is the only one of it’s kind in the entire film, threatens to completely derails any initial thoughts I once had. Did he leave the set cause the character himself was not attracted to the character he was supposed to have sex with, so he forces himself to take something for it? Or is it simply Ceylan’s way of showing the audience the façade that all films, and by extension the cast, have, and to strip it away and leave it bare for all to see? Ceylan in interviews has mostly avoided the topic and I understand why, it’s a sequence that leaves you thinking long after the final film is done and upends your entire view on it.

If About Dry Grasses eludes me in terms of thematic resonance at points (in a good way, like how a good piece of art will keep you thinking for months afterwards), what it doesn’t elude is how well shot and acted it is as well, with Merve Dizdar leading the charge with an excellent female leading turn against Deniz Celiloglu’s slimey lead. She has to do a lot here – a balancing act between being clearly traumatized from former events to strong willed in her own right. The way Ceylan depicts this – shot reverse-shot conversation scenes that are suddenly and quickly disturbed by harsh cutaways – is just sublime. Whenever it’s just the actors on screen doing their thing, it’s one of the best movies you’ll see all year. And even beyond that, it’s gorgeously shot and composed with some truly stunning cinematography that takes advantage of the dry and harsh landscape of Eastern Turkey.

I’m not going to claim to understand or fully grasp About Dry Grasses. It’s exceptionally dense, and it’s long runtime ensures that it will be a difficult one to revisit in the future, but it’s certainly one that I would absolutely love to. It feels like the work of a master at his best, with all of the pieces fitting together like a nice, snug glove and it becomes richer and more captivating the more I think about it. If anything, it ensures Ceylan as a director I must check out more often.