- “Among the Dry Grasses” was directed by the master of Turkish cinema, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the creator of “Uzak”, “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” and “Winter Dream”.
- Deniz Celiloğlu, a star of commercial Turkish cinema, plays an art teacher who returns to his home village.
- The film is part of the discussion about the use of power in interpersonal relationships and the promotion of inappropriate behavior.
Waiting for a miracle, for a change, for a structure to be broken. This miracle does not happen, but the waiting process itself is valuable. This is the essence of Turkish existentialist cinema and its international success.
Alchemy by the Turkish director. Allowing yourself to persistently accompany the longest films in the world. Hour one, two, three (show “Among the Dry Grasses” lasts well over three hours). This bothers some people, but it certainly doesn't bother fans of the author's Turkish cinema, and I am one of them.
This is alchemy, because under normal conditions, a similar size should be bothersome. What can I do, I'm tired of action cinema, I often don't understand much of it, but certainly not Ceylan. White, silence, stillness.
Bresson's “unexpected” results from the Turkish creator's expressive directorial concept: cinema is the equivalent of literature, a kind of extension of literature, and let's call it top-shelf literature.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan is often compared to Chekhov, the Chekhov of the screen. And I don't hear him being outraged by such comparisons (who would be outraged?). Chekhov, not Chekhov, the strategy, also in force in “The Dry Grass”, is similar. The shotgun will fire one day, but the remaining time should be used for silence, for whiteness, for stillness – and for the richest possible presentation of human attitudes and characters.
They can be funny – remember that Chekhov treated his works as comedies; they can be funny; they can be, as in “Among the Dry Grasses”, irritating and cruel. People.
Not idealized, not superficially portrayed as often the case, the size allows for attentiveness and vivisection.
A look deep into the hero to discover something important inside himself, as in Chekhov's work. And this is one of the wonders of this cinema, one of the wonders of film art.
It allows you to look into yourself and understand something more.
Melancholia is the hallmark and code of meaning of the cinema of the creator of “Uzak” and “Winter Dream”. In the latest film, it is melancholy juxtaposed with emptiness. Deniz Celiloğlu, a star of commercial Turkish cinema, plays a highly unsympathetic character in “The Dry Grass”. A rarity in Ceylan cinema, and a rarity in cinema in general.
We are again in Anatolia, the land covering the Asia Minor peninsula in Turkey, where most of the Turkish master's films are set. Semet, an art teacher, returns to the Anatolian village – played by Celiloğlu. It's white, snowy and cold.
Semet looks at all this with a sense of superiority: he knows more, looks better, deserves special treatment. It is an interesting portrait, precisely because at first reading it seems so unambiguous. We don't like the hero. Self-absorbed, egoistic, passionately attacking those who think or feel differently, which is almost everyone.
However, in Nuri Bilge's approach, Ceylan is also an ambivalent hero. With this film, the creator of “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” joins the great discussion about the use of power in interpersonal relationships and the promotion of inappropriate behavior. However, the Turkish director's conclusions are far from political correctness. This may irritate, arouse irritation and concern, but it is certainly not the tactic of a geek who does not notice the changes that have taken place in the world and in cinema. On the contrary, I have the impression that Ceylan deliberately provokes in order to achieve the effect of involving the viewer, forcing a reaction from the viewer. It is not about emotional blackmail, because these reactions are radically different and result primarily from a personal attitude towards changes in the worldview paradigm in recent years.
“So I will leave without sharing any wisdom or cry of despair; after all, nothing bad has happened to me. Nothing is happening to me. I will leave because I have come to the conclusion that I may be here tomorrow, and I may also not be there,” wrote Tadeusz Różewicz . Two possibilities, two truths. In this visually stunning rebus, the director himself – the cinematographers are Cevahir Sahin and Kürşat Üresin – allows both truths: the hero and the viewer to resonate.
The irritating Semet, questioning reality, building verbal ornaments to defend narcissistic content, simultaneously becomes a kind of hero of our times: collective and individual. A twisted time of twisted values.
7/10
“Among the Dry Grasses” (“Kuru Otlar Üstüne”), dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden 2024, distributor: Stowarzyszenie Nowe Horyzonty.