Sydney Film Festival Review - About Dry Grasses

 

“It seems to me that everything that is beautiful in this world, gets caught in the webs that we weave.”

Pensive, penitent and provocative, About Dry Grasses is a slow-burn 3 hour meditation on the selfishness and ego of a man who mistakes his intellect for wisdom, and refuses to recognise that his hubris actions have hard-hitting consequences, that remains consistently engaging with its dense dialogue and ruminations on risk and reward.

Discussion Points:

Merve Dizdar won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival last year for this film and it’s a very deserving win. Now over a year later it is finally screening in Australia as part of the Sydney Film Festival. It’s a 3hr dialogue-heavy dramatic epic examination that requires immense patience to get through, and yet I found large spans of the runtime to fly by as I got so invested in the play-like chamber piece discussions that occur throughout the film. In fact, I’d say it feels more like a play at moments than a film, with few locations, and anchored camera angles with frequent long takes and few cuts. It’s a difficult film to fully describe as well - it’s dealing with dicey subject matter which director Nuri Bilge Ceylan approaches very carefully with nuance and complexity. Deniz Celiloglu is tasked with a difficult character, actively unlikeable and frequently selfish and pridefully egotistical, and yet he still brings moments of warmth and gentleness to light. Merve Dizdar in contrast is granted a deeply sympathetic and strong woman to play who is fighting to rediscover her identity, femininity and freedom. It’s also a gorgeous wintery mood piece with some stunning visuals in the snow capped countryside of Anatolia, Turkey. Ultimately, About Dry Grasses may feel dry at moments, but for those willing to endure its frigid 3 hour runtime, there’s a complex, layered and provocative story at its core that delicately examines the damage of ego, selfishness and pride.