'About the Dry Pastures' review: a bitter Turkish drama endures

When we first meet Samet, the lone protagonist of Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's magnificent drama “About Dry Grasses,” he is miserable. Left in what appears to be the middle of nowhere, he trudges through the deep snow, the wind howling, without a soul in sight. Samet returns to work after winter break, to the job he doesn't like in a small town he hates. Over the course of the film's next three hours, he will rarely feel less miserable. The only question is how many others he will drag down with him.

Ceylan, the celebrated auteur whose 2014 film “Winter Sleep” won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, specializes in disenchanted individuals struggling with despair, their bleak circumstances contrasted with Turkey's gorgeous landscapes and surrounding beauty mocking their anguish. . But even by Ceylon's strict standards, “About Dry Grasses” is a dour, involving affair, starring one of his most complicated and ultimately despicable protagonists. This is not obvious at first, but by the end it becomes very clear.

Played by Deniz Celiloğlu, Samet resides in İncesu, a sleepy, impoverished community in eastern Anatolia, where he is an art teacher at the local school, along with his quiet housemate Kenan (Musab Ekic). Samet has one semester left before completing his mandatory four-year term, and he longs to be transferred to the much more cosmopolitan Istanbul and free himself from a place he uncharitably refers to as a garbage dump.

There are small consolations. Samet is enchanted by Sevim (Ece Bağcı), an intelligent and lively student with whom he shares a conspiratorial bond. However, we quickly notice their flirtatious relationship, their bodies getting closer as they walk down the hallway and later Samet gives her a compact. Ceylan does not comment on these moments; instead, she moves on, letting them linger in our memories, gnawing away like a secret we wish we didn't know. But secrets have consequences, and in “About the Dry Pastures,” the repercussions of the friendship between Samet and Sevim will soon have a chilling ripple effect.

This is just one of the two main plot threads of the film. The other begins when Samet meets Nuray (Merve Dizdar), a fellow teacher with whom she has set up a blind date. Friendly but cautious, Nuray lost her right leg in a terrorist attack: just one example of the fears running through Turkey's subconscious at a time of brutal authoritarian rule and Kurdish aspirations for independence. Samet and Nuray hit it off, but then he suggests to her roommate Kenan that he should court her; After all, they are both part of the minority religious sect of the Alawites. As for Samet, he seems to believe in nothing but himself.

Thus begins a tense pseudo-romantic triangle in which the three begin to spend time together, Samet silently envying the attention Nuray shows Kenan. Meanwhile, Samet encourages Sevim's young crush, while insisting that he is not interested in the intelligent, independent (and age-appropriate) Nuray. Is her reluctance an indication of his desire to be in situations he can control?

“I still haven't understood people,” Samet laments at one point, but his concern is likely less one of empathy than emotional dominance. Known for his slow dramas, Ceylan lights a long fuse that begins with a scandal at Samet's school but will eventually involve his friendship with Kenan and Nuray. Samet is a man who has so little in his life (the hope of eventually returning to Istanbul, the pure affection of Sevim) that when those cores are threatened, he reacts in unexpected and malicious ways.

Ceylan's films captivate on the big screen, where the vastness of Anatolia's arid and majestic outdoors overshadow the personal dramas of his downtrodden characters. Shot immersively in widescreen by cinematographers Cevahir Şahin and Kürşat Üresin, with an emphasis on static camera setups that allow characters to engage in long conversations that often end in debates, “About Dry Grasses” captures Samet in both school as in the world, a A sullen man, aggrieved at having to endure the indignities of his existence in a small town. But actor Celiloğlu continues to challenge our attitude towards Samet, his sad smile and vulnerable eyes occasionally hinting at buried shock.

Adding to that feeling is a series of striking photographs that Ceylan inserts infrequently into the film: images that Samet, an amateur photographer, takes of locals, conveying a poetry that belies his stoic exterior. Is he a misanthrope? Or was he simply misunderstood?

Like a rich novel, “About Dry Pastures” takes its time fleshing out its central actors, each of whom struggle with their own metaphorical purgatories. Ceylan, who co-wrote the script, has a Chekhovian fascination with protagonists overwhelmed by fate. The effortlessly orchestrated dialogue scenes are fascinating, but what's notable is that, as talkative as Samet and his henchwoman are, they often don't say what they mean. Characters argue about politics, worldviews, or how to handle the disturbing accusations leveled against Samet and Kenan at school, but their righteous rhetoric masks unspoken resentments and disappointments.

“I don't like anything too much,” Samet admits, a rare moment of candor in a film about people who have learned to get by, as the relentless snow outside their window seemingly extinguishes the spark within them. When “About Dry Grasses” premiered at Cannes, Dizdar took home the award for Best Actress, a testament to a quiet performance that nonetheless burrows into your psyche, just as Nuray quietly hooks Samet. Because of Nuray's disability, audiences might assume that she will be the compassionate saint and moral compass of the film, but nothing about Ceylan's construction is so simplistic. (If you need proof, look no further: a striking narrative blossoms near the end of “About Dry Grasses,” in which Ceylan actively interrogates her own meticulously rendered character study.)

Once Samet develops feelings for Nuray (or, at least, appears to), their relationship becomes a seductive verbal combat. But Nuray is not so easily wooed, and Dizdar brings a grounded intelligence; the character perhaps recognizes Samet's darker agenda without fully caring.

As Samet goes through his final semester, as winter gives way to summer, he keeps his true intentions close to the vest, his outward signs of cordiality undermined by ugly outbursts when he feels betrayed. Celiloğlu leaves these contradictions a mystery, but only those foolish enough to look for the best in people will be unable to solve the riddle. With casual dexterity, Ceylan lays bare the kind of master operator hiding in plain sight, skilled at ensnaring unwitting victims.

The film ends with a plaintive voiceover from Samet that is so double-edged that it is practically a critique of the emotional manipulation of the cinematic device. This pathetic bastard longs to escape to Istanbul, where he can be with the worldly types he prefers. Anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path in “About Dry Pastures” will no doubt be happy to see him go.