DIRECTOR: NURI BILGE CEYLAN
STARRING: DENIZ CELILOGLU, MERVE DIZDAR, MUSAB EKICI, ECE BAGCI
RUNNING TIME: 3 HRS 17 MINUTES
A young teacher hopes to be appointed to Istanbul after mandatory duty at a small village. After a long time waiting he loses all hope of escaping from this gloomy life. However, his colleague Nuray helps him to regain perspective.
STARRING: DENIZ CELILOGLU, MERVE DIZDAR, MUSAB EKICI, ECE BAGCI
RUNNING TIME: 3 HRS 17 MINUTES
A young teacher hopes to be appointed to Istanbul after mandatory duty at a small village. After a long time waiting he loses all hope of escaping from this gloomy life. However, his colleague Nuray helps him to regain perspective.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“All the beauty in the world gets stuck in the webs we weave before it ever reaches us.”
About Dry Grasses is the International Feature submission for Turkey. The film is about Samet, a teacher at a state school in the remote region of Eastern Anatolia. He’s been there for four years now under a mandatory assignment due to the Turkish public education system. Finally, he has the chance to leave this icy, cold, remote area and head back to Istanbul.
Samet is an art teacher and he’s very friendly with his pupils, especially with Sevim, a 14 year old girl who he has flirtatious banter with and sometimes puts his arms around her. After a bag search at the school, a love letter is found in Sevim’s school bag. It’s not addressed to anyone but it’s clearly meant for Samet. Embarrassed and humiliated, she asks for the love letter back, but he refuses to give it and claims that he’s shredded it. He’s worried that this will get him into trouble. Sevim is furious and makes an allegation that Samet has made inappropriate advances towards her to the principal. This rocks Samet’s world and it propels him down a road of existential crisis.
The lives of predators and victims don’t stop once an accusation has been made. Samet begins to lash out at all his students in his classroom and Sevim is the one most affected by it. He even begins to attack his relationship with his roommate, another teacher in the school, by flirting with the woman he’s interested in, not worried about the consequences and the hurt that it’s causing everyone around him. Samet is a groomer, and his tendencies are displayed in all aspects of his life, with most of them being more socially acceptable.
For the residents in this town, there are only two seasons: Winter and Summer. Once the snow melts away, we’re left with grass, buried away for months. This dormancy is a natural protection mechanism for grass to withstand all weather changes. And this part of nature can be related to us humans. We all have questions about the meaning and the purpose of life. These questions aren’t easy to find answers and it can leave us feeling stuck, just like the residents in this small town in Turkey.
In the end we’re all just fumbling across dry grasses, tricking ourselves into thinking we have it all figured out.
REVIEW: B+
(This review contains spoilers.)
“All the beauty in the world gets stuck in the webs we weave before it ever reaches us.”
About Dry Grasses is the International Feature submission for Turkey. The film is about Samet, a teacher at a state school in the remote region of Eastern Anatolia. He’s been there for four years now under a mandatory assignment due to the Turkish public education system. Finally, he has the chance to leave this icy, cold, remote area and head back to Istanbul.
Samet is an art teacher and he’s very friendly with his pupils, especially with Sevim, a 14 year old girl who he has flirtatious banter with and sometimes puts his arms around her. After a bag search at the school, a love letter is found in Sevim’s school bag. It’s not addressed to anyone but it’s clearly meant for Samet. Embarrassed and humiliated, she asks for the love letter back, but he refuses to give it and claims that he’s shredded it. He’s worried that this will get him into trouble. Sevim is furious and makes an allegation that Samet has made inappropriate advances towards her to the principal. This rocks Samet’s world and it propels him down a road of existential crisis.
The lives of predators and victims don’t stop once an accusation has been made. Samet begins to lash out at all his students in his classroom and Sevim is the one most affected by it. He even begins to attack his relationship with his roommate, another teacher in the school, by flirting with the woman he’s interested in, not worried about the consequences and the hurt that it’s causing everyone around him. Samet is a groomer, and his tendencies are displayed in all aspects of his life, with most of them being more socially acceptable.
For the residents in this town, there are only two seasons: Winter and Summer. Once the snow melts away, we’re left with grass, buried away for months. This dormancy is a natural protection mechanism for grass to withstand all weather changes. And this part of nature can be related to us humans. We all have questions about the meaning and the purpose of life. These questions aren’t easy to find answers and it can leave us feeling stuck, just like the residents in this small town in Turkey.
In the end we’re all just fumbling across dry grasses, tricking ourselves into thinking we have it all figured out.
REVIEW: B+
