Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

"As discouraging art-house titles go, 'About Dry Grasses' is a cracker, right up there for me with an early Ozu, 'I Was Born, But...' In almost every other way too, the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's ninth feature would seem to make the perfect pretentious date movie in a Woody Allen comedy" - David Sexton, New Statesman. "Hope, disappointment, self-discovery: they're all in here, along with, in the end, the dry grasses. Some will consider the film a masterpiece; others an ordeal. I'd lean towards the former but would also offer this advice: take sandwiches" - Deborah Ross, Spectator.

So, is this just a pretentious, too-long, art-house movie, or a masterpiece? Set in a small town, buried in Eastern Anatolia, Samet is a 30-something school teacher, stuck here on a four year compulsory posting. He is accused of inappropriate behaviour with a 14-year-old pupil, Sevim, whilst his pursuing of Nuray, an attractive, independent fellow-teacher, seems to be getting nowhere as she, maybe, prefers his colleague Kenan. Like all Ceylan movies, it is beautiful in the extreme and full of words; co-written with his wife, Ebru Ceylan, long conversations abound, full of the basic tenet of the film - "every truth is partial as it's tinged with the teller's perspective. Even our own conclusions on the state of the world and our role in it must be scrutinized, since neither hope nor despair should be fully believed" - Carlos Aguilar, RogerEbert.com.

This looks like a masterpiece to me, but should you believe me or not?! Hopefully you will, but either way come along and decide for yourself. Maybe, if you have doubts, you should bring sandwiches...