Unveiling Meaning: Layers of About Dry Grasses

Release Date：Feb/23/2024

Genre：Drama

Director：Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Cast：Deniz Celiloglu、Merve Dizdar、Musab Ekici、Ece Bagci、Erdem Senocak、Yüksel Aksu

Viola's Rating：8.6

Turkish actor, director, photographer and screenwriter Nuri Ceylan’s latest feature film premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, and will be in the US for a limited release on Feb 23, 2024. About Dry Grasses lasts more than three hours, but the story it tells is undoubtedly beautiful.

What comes into the audience’s eyes at the very beginning of About Dry Grasses is the empty, frigid, remote, vast and not-so-fascinating white backdrop. It opens the pages of a young teacher, Samet, who hopes to be appointed to Istanbul after serving four years of mandatory duty at a rural village. After a long time of waiting, he loses all hope of escaping from this depressing life. However, he regains angle after he meets another teacher, Nuray.

Similar to Director Ceylan’s interest, Samet is passionate about still photography. About Dry Grasses tells us that it’s more important to see with our hearts instead of our eyes. When we look at something, most likely, the hidden meanings or issues are “beyond the visible” rather than what’s happening at the moment. From Samet’s interaction with other characters in the film, we gradually conceive this idea. A bunch of unsaid information influences how people perceive their lives and the world.

There are four “fight” scenes around the table throughout About Dry Grasses. Actually, the characters are just communicating and exchanging different thoughts with each other. Not all of these scenes come to a conclusion, but they’re definitely food for thought for moviegoers as well.

Humanity and moral complexities are complicated. The darkest and weakest aspects of humanity only appear when we feel that our rights are violated by other people. Even if we don’t want to hurt others, sometimes, that’s the only solution or only way to our own problems. It may sound selfish, but we need to love ourselves before we can love others, don’t we? Selfishness is a comparable concept. Audiences may see a bit of themselves in every one of the characters in About Dry Grasses.

However, the protagonist Samet is probably the person that we all relate to, but he’s also the one that we don’t want to admit that we’re similar to because of his narcissism. It seems that he never blames himself as if all the bad things that happen to him are other people’s faults. About Dry Grasses tells us that there’s nothing wrong with complaining, but it’s more important to take action than merely complaining.

After we watch About Dry Grasses, we must have a favorable character, and let’s keep reminding ourselves that although no one can be perfect, at least we don’t have regrets in every deed we do and every word we say.

Picture Credit: IMDb