About Dry Grasses (2023)

About Dry Grasses is the kind of drama that doesn’t just tell a story so much as place you inside a moral winter—beautiful, quiet, and quietly suffocating—where every look and line of dialogue feels weighted with consequence. Nuri Bilge Ceylan turns a remote Anatolian village into a vast emotional landscape, photographing snow, classrooms, and cramped interiors with the same patient, piercing attention he gives to his characters’ self-deceptions. Deniz Celiloğlu’s teacher is riveting in his contradictions, and when Merve Dizdar enters as Nuray, the film opens into bracing, intellectually alive conversations that feel less like “scenes” than like two minds sparring for survival. It’s long, talky, and deliberately uncomfortable at times, so it won’t be for viewers wanting quick catharsis—but if you’re up for a novelistic, visually ravishing character study that lingers in the bloodstream, this one is worth the commitment.

About Dry Grasses is clearly aiming for a slow-burn, psychologically thorny portrait of a man rotting from the inside while a bleak rural posting and a damaging accusation strip away his excuses. Ceylan’s eye for wintery Anatolian landscapes and the film’s moral ambiguity are genuinely compelling, and the performances keep the tension alive even when nothing “happens.” But be warned: it’s long, deliberately talkative, and often more interested in extended philosophical sparring than narrative momentum, which can start to feel like the movie congratulating itself for being deep. If you love patient, idea-heavy character studies, you’ll likely be absorbed; if you need tighter pacing, clearer catharsis, or less discursiveness, this may feel like an endurance test dressed up as art.