While not as resonating as his recent output such are his towering standards, Ceylan’s new film is still an exquisitely mounted, conversation-heavy exploration of the desire to escape from existential gloom as a village schoolteacher mulls over the prospect of a city transfer.

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Some might see this as Winter Sleep 2.0, but while there is some truth to that with its bare, wintry landscapes and conversation-heavy narrative, About Dry Grasses also sees director Nuri Bilge Ceylan engaging in slight stylistic ‘detours’, most notably the use of montages of still images of people looking back at the camera.  These ‘portraits’ are taken by the protagonist, Samet, a village schoolteacher who enjoys photography. 

However, About Dry Grasses isn’t quite about image-making, even if one might consider Ceylan to be one of contemporary world cinema’s foremost image-makers, such is his attention to the natural environment that modulates—and at times envelopes—his characters who elusively grasp for meaning in their lives. 

Samet, who was assigned to this isolated village, mulls over the prospect of a city transfer after years of personal and professional stagnancy, in a bid to escape from a mounting existential gloom that seems to hang in the air. 

“All the beauty in this world gets stuck in the webs we weave before it ever reaches us.”

What also hangs in the air is the spectre of alleged inappropriate behaviour towards certain female students, one that haunts Samet and his colleague Kenan.  Enter Nuray (Merve Dizdar, who looks like a Turkish Marion Cotillard), also a teacher, whose encounters with Samet and Kenan become a nudge towards considering new perspectives in life. 

Ceylan cleverly adopts the ‘love triangle’ plot device—with its associated baggage of jealousy and oneupmanship—and turns it into a treatise on politics and society, where hard talk becomes an obstacle to interpersonal connection. 

Look out for a bewildering ‘Inland Empire-ish’ meta-moment in what may be vaguely described as an artistic and psychological ‘realignment’ of Samet’s passive/active role in the continuation of the aforementioned plot device. 

About Dry Grasses should please fans and like the novelistic Winter Sleep (2014) and The Wild Pear Tree (2018), the three-hour-plus runtime ticks by effortlessly, a slow cinema page-turner if you will. 

Grade: A-

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