“About Dry Grasses” Is a Departure for Nuri Bilge Ceylan

How soon will you find yourself turning against Samet? Perhaps as early as the scene in which he and his colleague and housemate, Kenan (Musab Ekici), go out for tea with Nuray (Merve Dizdar), a fellow-teacher from a nearby town. Until now, Samet has shown negligible romantic interest in this young woman, but his competitive instincts are awakened by her unexpected chemistry with Kenan. The warmer their conversation, the more bitter and reproachful Samet’s silence. Your reservations might deepen when you see, in montages throughout the film, the many portraits that Samet, an amateur photographer, has taken of various Anatolian locals posed in their natural surroundings—images of stirring but also faintly patronizing beauty. Samet, a self-styled urbanite who dreams of moving to Istanbul, can’t hide his contempt for the country mice he’s been saddled with. “None of you will become artists,” he hisses at his pupils during one particularly nasty tantrum, condemning them to a lifetime of planting potatoes and sugar beets. In another ugly scene, when a student accuses him of favoritism, he yells, “Don’t take advantage because I’m nice.”