nuri bilge ceylan

About Dry Grasses

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Ece Bagci as a snow speckled Sevim

Winner of the annual “most arthouse-movie-title award” – About Dry Grasses (Kuru Otlar Üstüne)? That academic “About”. The fact that it’s in Turkish. Over three hours long. By a director whose name many non-Turks struggle to pronounce. Exotica ahoy! The award is just a joke, but the movie is by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (roughly pronounced Nooree Bill-geh Jail-ann), who has directed some exquisite movies since his debut nearly 30 years ago, among them Uzak, Climates, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and Winter Sleep. About Dry Grasses is his longest feature to date, edging out 2014’s Winter Sleep by a minute or so, at three hours 17 minutes. And while it does occasionally … Read more

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

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The opening shot from Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 30 October The Bridge over the Bosphorus completed, 1973 It is one of the polite fictions of what used to be called the civilised world that Europe is a continent. Looked at objectively, with space goggles on, the continent is more properly Eurasia, Europe getting special treatment because of its historical importance. One of the “border” points of Europe has always been the Black Sea, the point where it empties out into the Mediterranean being one of the great dividing lines between Europe and Asia (the Urals, Ural River, Caspian and Caucasus Mountains forming the rest of the dividing line). Thus … Read more