Full Review: About Dry Grasses

Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest feature is a thoughtful, loquacious drama set in the beautifully rugged Anatolian winter

Gentle snowfall and dulcet voiceover lightly dapple Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s newest film, About Dry Grasses, in a soporific comfort and peacefulness. While wintry scenes can often portray a sense of biting distress, there is a serenity in the stillness of a snow-covered field and the sight of your own breath dancing in the wind. Who doesn’t feel their best when wrapped in a cozy jacket, buffing against a gentle breeze?

Despite the picturesque tableaus and invitingly soothing interiors, the film is deeply concerned with the unsettling nature of egotistical rapture—both requited and not. Masculine fragility is at the center of this dialogue-laden drama, peaking up behind every conversational horizon, just like the Anatolian mountain ranges constantly needling the background of the snowy exteriors. We follow a rural middle school art teacher named Samet (Deniz Celiloglu). In Samet we find a near lethargic mediocrity. He seems to be decently well-liked, but not fully matriculated into the schoolteachers’ social circles, despite being with the institution for four years now. Although he is an art teacher, he confides that he does not practice much, leading to questions about his talents. As an instructor he is not much better, giving preferentially treatment to favorite students and harshly criticizing any students who question his biases. What we see is a man living selfishly, but without the ambition of someone successful in life.

During a routine bag-check of the students by two teachers from other classrooms, one of Samet’s students, and the eye of his far too chummy affection, Sevim (Ece Bagci), has a love note confiscated from her bag. Samet, concerned about the potential contents of the note—whether his concern was if he was in it, or worse, if he wasn’t—is not ultimately shown, nor is it important. Relieved that a gift he had given the student, an action he knew was inappropriate, has been ignored, he goes to the teacher who confiscated the note to take it back. He does not return it to Sevim, however. Instead, he opts to keep it—an exercise of power over her romantic feelings. That he is the dominant force in her budding sense of affection.

The following day, Samet and his coworker/roommate Kenan (Musab Ekici) are accused of inappropriate behavior by two students. What follows is a full investigation by the accused to find out who has levied such charges against them, and what actions they are being accused of having done. Between those scenes full of a glaring lack of introspection, instead full of vitriol towards these young teen/tween girls, are a mix of platonic and romantic interludes as Samet and Kenan are introduced to another teacher from a nearby town, Nuray (Merve Dizdar). Here we further see the characteristics of each of these men played out anew. Their various degrees of passivity vs. ambition, jealousy vs. acceptance, irritability vs. calmness. The leads find themselves embroiled in two separate battles of subtlety and guile—two combatants sharing an uncertain field.

But these two men only become combatants on any level due to the actions of Samet. His ego and selfishness beget the accusations from the students, which (justly or unjustly) drag Kenan into their legal quandary. Likewise, Samet’s sense of superiority to all of those around him leads to his premature rejection of Nuray, only serving to hurt his own feelings and sense of worth when Nuray responds by seeking companionship in Kenan. Samet constructs every obstacle in his path and sharpens every thorn before putting it squarely in his own side. His treatment of his students is gruff and harsh, as though anything from them less than the height of reverence is derelict of their responsibility to worship him.

In this, we have a biting criticism of the state of the modern Turkish man. There are so few respectable male figures in the film. Even the young male students find revelry in Samet’s rough treatment of Sevim after her accusations (because no other teacher has treated her as such before; hardly a compliment). Samet is able to get away with anything he would like, and every man around him assures him of this every step of the way. He is constantly being coddled by the men at the heads of institutions or in leadership that, whether anything had happened or not, he will be okay and all of this will be buried, covered in the snow. We are witness to an insecure man running overtop of a string of otherwise innocent (or at least harmless) individuals whose only sins have been to be of a moderate interference to his utmost comfort.

Ceylan covers this film in a delicate frost of discomfort and disappointment. We see the veneer of beauty, but are left to wrestle with the uncomfortable truths that are beneath it. The film is like Samet’s photography. Portraits staged so wonderfully, detailing proud working-class people and inspiring settings of a true, rugged life. But behind that is unsavory poverty which Samet throughs in the faces of his students; the painful winter, with its freezing pipes and difficult to travel roads; the forgiven trespasses of egotistical men. There is beauty within the mountains of Anatolia, but they must be thawed before they are buried.