About Dry Grasses: Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s drama requires patience, given its long runtime, but there is no doubt that it rewards that in spades. The film follows a teacher located in a distant and wintery village in Eastern Türkiye as he enters his last year before he can ask for a transfer to a more appealing location; there are looks into his relationship with his pupils (one in particular), colleagues, and locals. The protagonist is an endless well of resentment and anger for being where he is, not at all interested in being a “good guy” but way more complex than simply a “bad guy”, and he is a wonderful creation of Deniz Celiloğlu. As good as he may be, he is nearly upstaged by Ece Bağcı (who plays his favourite pupil, a lively girl who is at the center of a minor scandal) and effectively upstaged by Merve Dizdar (whose character is another teacher, an intelligent and dynamic woman for whom both the protagonist and his best friend fall for).

The film has a number of long dialogues, which are rich, complex, and exploratory (of the characters and the situation they are in, the realities of the small village and the country as a whole). They explain a lot without ever feeling overly didactic and always feel fascinating. Cinematographers Kürşat Üresin and Cevahir Şahin capture it all in long takes, beautifully framed and lit.