Kuru otlar üstüne

As the hopes attached to this year’s Turkish election recede, KURU OTLAR ÜSTÜNE begins to feel like some sort of historical document, a proudly cerebral state-of-the-nation address from an era already consigned to the past. Yet the myriad insights of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s ninth feature are also timeless, like his ability to craft a level of novelistic detail rarely seen in cinema; the snowy, emptied-out landscapes of Eastern Anatolia themselves resemble the blank pages of a book. Its first lines sketch out the life of an unsatisfied art teacher called Samet, who is adored by his students but dreams of being reassigned to Istanbul, which explains his relative lack of interest in Nurey, an art teacher from a nearby city rebuilding her life after losing her leg in a suicide bombing. When Samet’s favouritism triggers a scandal at school, the resultant discussions appear to take centre stage, although they turn out to be just one set of conversations among so many, all aimed at probing the pluralism, complexity and inconsistency of Turkish society today; it’s an idea best summed up by Nurey herself in one of this spectacularly articulate film’s many astute turns of phrase. “Everything beautiful in this world gets stuck in the webs we weave.” (James Lattimer)

In the presence of Deniz Celiloğlu.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan: KASABA (1998), MAYIS SIKINTISI (2000), UZAK (2002), İKLIMLER (2006), ÜÇ MAYMUN (2008), BIR ZAMANLAR ANADOLU’DA (2011), KIŞ UYKUSU (2014), AHLAT AĞACI (2017)