Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a filmmaker who truly appreciates the beauty of snow. He finds inspiration in the depths of winter, the sight of people bundled up in thick coats, and even frozen taps. His love for these long, bitterly cold seasons in mountain regions is evident in his work, including his Palme d’Or-winning film, Winter Sleep. In his latest film, About Dry Grasses, Ceylan explores the melancholy of middle-class life in a desolate country with only two seasons that turn over so quickly that the yellow grass buried under the snow almost immediately turns brown under the fierce summer sun.
The film follows Samet (Deniz Celiloglu), an art teacher in a village school who constantly questions his purpose in life. He wonders why a man of the world like himself is teaching potato farmers’ children how to draw a horse. Samet and the other teachers have too little to do, far too much to say, and a collective resentment of the fact that they are teachers. Samet spends most of his time staring out of the window, occasionally inviting Sevim (Ece Bagci), the brightest girl in his class, to answer a random question. His favoritism towards Sevim extends to giving her little gifts and lending her books. The other kids notice, and trouble is brewing.
Samet shares a house with another teacher, Kenan (Musab Ekici), who is swept up into his wake when someone accuses them both of having touched students inappropriately. The district education director won’t say who accused them or what they are supposed to have done, and battling this bureaucracy’s rules is like wrestling with smoke. Samet tries to goad Sevim into admitting to it, but she slips from his grasp like an eel. They both know that he was fixated on her.
Ceylan constructs his own imaginary sliver of a universe over more than three hours of dense dialogue. Whether it’s the teachers squabbling in the staffroom, Samet swapping life advice over whisky with his friend the plumber, Samet talking to himself, or Samet and Kenan or both solving the riddles of life with their new friend Nuray (Merve Dizdar), it is through argument that they make sense of the world.
Not everyone can stomach hours of verbal sparring, often so frustratingly abstruse that it takes a long time to find the real subject of each conversation. Ceylan’s approach to his staffroom conflict, building it brick by conversational brick, demands close attention and far more patience than many people have in the bank. But for Ceylan’s many fans, this is another opportunity to slip into his world, spot his sly political references, and subside for a while into the life of the mind. That life isn’t an easy ride and certainly not too quick, but it is a rewarding one.
