(Reviews of About Dry Grasses; and I Saw the TV Glow)
ABOUT DRY GRASSES.
For decades, schoolteachers were paragons of cinematic virtue. They inspired, nurtured, and protected their students, whether from the traditions of their public school or the vicissitudes of a cruel world. Then, around the time that Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) allowed Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) to get under his skin in Alexander Payne's Election and Eve Tingle (Helen Mirren) set out to discredit Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes) in Kevin Williamson's Teaching Mrs Tingle (both 1999), things started to change.
The behaviour of some of the staff at Hogwarts should surely have attracted the attention of the inspectorate. But bad teachers became increasingly common in the more `real world' situations depicted in Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (2001), Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal (2006), Craig Gillespie's Mr Woodcock (2007), Jake Kasdan's Bad Teacher (2011), Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt (2012) and Another Round (2020), and İlker Çatak The Teachers' Lounge (2023). Another is added to their number in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's About Dry Grasses.
Dropped off at a bus stop in the middle of an Anatolian nowhere, Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu) trudges through the Incesu snow to start a new term at the school where he has been teaching art on a government posting for four years. He lives on campus and catches up with roommate Kenan (Musab Ekici) and a ranger sergeant (S. Emrah Özdemir) at the nearby base, who sets him up on a blind date with Nuray (Merve Dizdar), an English teacher at a bigger school in the neighbouring town who lost a leg in a terrorist explosion. While they get on well enough, Samet tries to get Kenan interested, as he has no intention of settling down.
Samet is desperate to get a transfer back to Istanbul and snaps when a kid accuses him of always favouring Sevim (Ece Bağcı) and her best friend, Aylin (Birsen Sürme) when it comes to answering questions. He clearly engages with the chirpy 14 year-old and gives her the occasional gift (which he tells her not to show to her classmates) and even lets her link his arm on the corridor. When she's caught by Kevser (Nalan Kuruçim) with a love letter in a notebook during a class search, Samet criticises his female colleague for being a spoilsport. However, he's unsettled when Sevim asks for its return and starts crying when he tells her that he's torn it up. He tries to reassure her that there's nothing wrong with being in love and recalls having a crush on a teacher that he considers the purest feelings of his life.
But Sevim doesn't believe he destroyed the letter and he believes she is responsible when he is summoned by the Director of Education (Yıldırım Gücük) to answer a complaint that he and Kenan have behaved in an inappropriate manner. As guidance counsellor
Alakan (Ferhat Akgün) points out, they can't say who pressed the charge or to what it relates. But the director makes it clear that they would have been toast if it had related to something outside the classroom. As it is, he has been able to bury the report and he has reassured Principal Bekir (Onur Berk Arslanoglu) that there will be no scandal.
Kenan protests vociferously, while Semet remains silent. But he is furious when he gets back to school and invites senior colleague, Tolga (Erdem Şenocak) to sit in on a meeting with Bekir, as he wants to know why he didn't alert him to the situation before he was hauled before the big boss. Bitter at being overlooked for the principalship, Kenan blames Bekir for following the rulebook instead of using common sense. But he informs them that someone has accused them of putting their arms around them and pinching their cheek. Kenan denies everything, but Samet knows that he had tried to put a hand on Sevim's shoulder when she had been upset about the letter.
Nevertheless, he's outraged when Tolga confirms that Sevim had named Samet and Ayin had accused Kenan. On hearing that Sevim is angry about the letter, Samet protests that he had taken it off Kevser to spare her blushes. But Tolga says things are viewed differently in village communities and, when Kenan ticks his friend off for giving Sevim presents, Samet barks back that Kenan is a local defending the customs and psyche of his insular and uncivilised community.
During his first lesson with Sevim's class, Samet loses his temper and insults the kids by saying they'll spend their lives planting potatoes and beets so that the rich can be more comfortably indifferent to their plight. Bekir warns him to go easy after there are complaints, but he sends Sevim into the corridor at the start of the next session and milks the approval of the boys who had been irritated by his past favouritism. However, his relationship with Kenan starts to decline, especially after Nuray asks to take a photo of him so she can do his portrait and nudges Samet's arm out of the shot. He is also annoyed by their chattiness whenever they meet up for tea and resents Kenan being invited to meet her parents after she had sidestepped his invitation to dinner.
When he meets up with village friends, Vahit (Yüksel Aksu) and Feyyaz (Münir Can Cindoruk), Samet finds himself refereeing their argument over the latter picking a fight with a local. On his way back to his digs, he drops in on Tolga, who tells him that Ayin's complaint had been about Kanan and that he had been caught in the middle. He suggests that Kanan was jealous of Samet's relationship with the girls and had been clumsy in trying to be pally himself. Having seen him ingratiate himself with Nuray, Samet turns against him and calls him a rat.
His regard takes a further downturn when he sees Kanan and Nuray together in town and his friend claims to have spent the day with his sick father at the hospital. Venturing back out, Samet makes a point of bumping into Nuray to see if she mentions anything. She invites the pair to supper at her lodgings, but Samet doesn't tell Kanan and lies about him being busy when he shows up alone. While she prepares the food, he mooches around the room and notices some of Nuray's excellent drawings, which he recognises as superior to his own efforts as an amateur photographer (which we see in a couple of montages).
After dinner, Nuray goads Samet about his insistence that his life will improve once he leaves the school, as she feels his problems stem from his attitudes and not his location. The discussion becomes heated when they get on to politics and Samet struggles to keep his temper as he tries to justify his beliefs. When he lets slip that he had hoped she would be more receptive to him, Nuray moves to the sofa.
She asks him more personal questions about how he views himself, his opinion on children, and whether he believes in monogamy. He's taken aback when she asks why he lied about not telling Kanan and he tries to kiss her. Nuray goes into the bedroom and he follows her, cupping her face and planting kisses. Demurely, she asks him to dim the lights and he wanders into the next room and out into the soundstage housing the set. Striding past co-workers at the studio, Samet/Celi̇loğlu goes to the bathroom and stares into the mirror and pops a pill (Viagra, perhaps?) before returning to the film world, having survived a moment of self-loathing narcissism to discover how to play the next scene without his mask slipping.
They have sex and Nuray shows him how her prosthetic leg works. He admires the sophisticated equipment and promises to say nothing to Kenan about what has happened. But the first thing he does is blurt it out with insouciant smugness and delights in the pain it causes his housemate, who ignores incoming texts on his phone. After several days of this, Nuray comes to the house in her new car (Kenan had been giving her lessons) and she fights tears as she asks him why he had been snubbing her. The look on Samet's face clues her that he had broken his promise and she explains that she had slept with him to see how her body would respond because she is constantly having to renegotiate how she copes with life and her place in it. She bemoans the fact she feels so weary, but recoginses that she's not alone in her ennui.
Leaving in distress, she has to ask Kenan to drive her home, as it's snowing heavily. A POV shot through the windscreen shows falling flakes and they blur into a match shot of the green grass over which Samet strolls, as he laments in voiceover how slowly time passes in a backwater that is unrecognisable without its white blanket. He arrives at the school to inform Torga that he is glad to be leaving.
As Samet tidies his office, Sevim breezes in with a slice of cake. She's wearing a pink dress and lipstick and chats as though nothing untoward has happened. Sitting her down, Samet asks if she has anything to say about recent events, but she simply smiles as he tells her that his greatest disappointment at the school is wasting the time he invested in her. She waits until he's finished and enquires whether he'll be coming to the end-of-term celebration.
While exploring an ancient ruin of Karakuş Tumulus with Nuray and Kenan, Samet climbs a hill on his own. He's not that interested in the columns (one of which has since collapsed), the civilisation that erected them, or the socio-religious purpose they once served. It's a hot day and he notices the dry grasses under his feet that would otherwise have felt so insignificant, but now seems so poignant because they have parched almost as soon as they have sprouted. He thinks about how things with Sevim could never have been different because of the chasm between them and because she has the energy and ambition he lacks. As he recalls a snowball fight with her, he reflects on how sad it will be that he had created a mirage to help him get through his ordeal, as she will stay in her tiny corner of Turkey and waste the talent he had detected in her. He would feel sorry for her, as he had seen something of his young self in her. But, as he concludes, `Seasons come and go, hopes are born to die, and still, life goes on.'
Although the spirit of Anton Chekhov is again evident in a Nuri Bilge Ceylan drama, it's Jean Renoir's insistence that `everyone has their reasons' that makes his ninth feature so compelling and compassionate. Played without vanity by Deniz Celiloğlu, the amoral, manipulative Samet is not an easy character to like. With notable exceptions, he has no interest in his students and is more concerned that they put the lids back on their pens than that they appreciate perspective or learn how to sketch a horse. He has friends around the village he considers a hellhole, but has exhausted the patience of the majority of his colleagues. Local boy made good, Kenan looks up to the city slicker, even though he's considerably brighter and more affable and attractive, as Nuray soon discovers.
Their café tryst is one of several set-pieces that Ceylan and cinematographers Kürşat Üresin and Cevahir Şahin capture in long takes filled with deft camera moves that consistently coerce the viewer into reappraising what they are watching. Ceylan and Oğuz Atabaş's editing is also acute, notably during Samet and Nuray's dinner-table exchange and the tense aftermath in her bedroom that includes an audacious self-reflexive detour that wrenches the audience out of the action before plunging them back in with no explanation.
Nuray also features in another standout sequence, as she tries to coax Kenan into coming clean about the reason for not returning her calls. Desperately sad and impeccably played by Merve Dizdar (who won the Best Actress prize at Cannes), this tearful confrontation is matched by Sevim's embarrassed bid to reclaim the love letter that she knows Samet has read and not destroyed. The way in which Ece Bağcı switches between giggling innocent to wounded avenger is superb and confirms Ceylan's genius for handling actors and ensuring that screeds of erudite dialogue (crafted by Ceylan, wife Ebru Ceylan, and co-writer, Akın Aksu) sound natural rather than rehearsed.
The supporting cast is solid, but the most fascinating character is the landscape, which is shrouded for much of the time (like Samet's joie de vivre) to drive home the point of how culturally detached Istanbul and Ankara are from the more easterly regions. However, Ceylan resists the temptation to delve too deeply into Turkey's complicated political situation, although it's implied that the suicide bomber who injured Nuray was Kurdish and he rightly avers that Samet's problems don't amount to a hill of beans compared to theirs. Religion is also reduced to a fudged answer, as Nuray interrogates an ambivalent Samet while debating whether to go to bed with him.
Not for the first time in a Ceylan film, women are cast in a more positive light than men, with Nuray wearing casually the heroism that Samet refuses to contemplate in wanting to be left alone to live as misanthropically as he sees fit. Yet, while they may be opposites on so many issues, the pair share a view that the education system in this `land of unending setbacks' does staff or students few favours. Given such entrenched resistance to change, one can only wonder where Samet will end up teaching next and, if he does stay in the profession, will he have learned his lesson?
I SAW THE TV GLOW.
`This is just the suburbs,' says the protagonist of Jane Schoenbrun's sophomore outing, I Saw the TV Glow. It sounds like the anxious teen equivalent to the world-weary middle-aged cynicism of Perry Lopez's closing line to Jack Nicholson in Roman Polanski's classic 1974 neo-noir: `Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.' There are numerous cultural allusions in this follow-up to We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021), with the TV show at its centre being named after a Cocteau Twins greatest hits LP. Perhaps the use of The Pink Opaque is deliberate, as this ambitious exploration of trans angst and the adolescent psyche (and its enduring legacy) often feels - on the visual side, at least - much more like a cover compilation than a concept album.
Biracial seventh-grader Owen (Ian Foreman) is a bit of a loner. It takes courage, therefore, to approach Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), who is two years his senior at Void High School, when he spots her reading an episode guide of the cult TV series, The Pink Opaque. Although he's never seen the show, Owen is intrigued by its protagonists, Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan), a pair of psychic teens who met in the pilot episode at summer camp. Each week, they use their powers from opposite sides of the county to thwart a monster dispatched by their nemesis, Mr Melancholy.
As the show is on too late for him to watch at home, Owen invents a sleepover with friend Jimmy Link so that his mother, Brenda (Danielle Deadwyler), will allow him out. She drops him off at the door, but he delays ringing the bell until she drives away, so that he can join Maddy and her friend, Amanda (Emma Portner), for a basement viewing. Despite being puzzled by the storyline, Owen is immediately hooked, although part of the appeal lies in being with Maddy, who leaves him to spend the night in his sleeping bag beneath a large fish tank with the warning to be out of the house at first light because her father can be cranky.
Two years pass and Owen (Justice Smith) is now addicted to the exploits of Isabel and Tara, even though father Frank (Fred Durst) taunts him that it's a show for girls. It's 1998 and Brenda has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. She insists he's in bed before The Pink Opaque screens, so Maddy provides Owen with VHS cassettes of each episode. They don't have much contact at school, however, and Maddy has to point out that she's a lesbian when he approaches her on the sports field bleachers to ask if they can watch a tape together. Much to her annoyance, she has been ostracised because Amanda had joined the cheerleading squad and accused her of attempting to grope her breast. But she's sympathetic to Owen when he admits that he hasn't yet figured out his sexuality. He has a feeling that there's `something wrong' with him, but, for now, he's content just to like TV shows.
When they meet up to watch the episode, Maddy starts to cry. When Owen asks if she is okay, she reveals that she is going to run away from her abusive stepfather and urges him to come with her. Although Owen packs a bag, his nerve fails him and grief over the loss of his mother exacerbates the fact that Maddy disappears (leaving behind only a burning TV set in the yard) and The Pink Opaque is cancelled after five seasons.
Eight years later, Owen works at the local movie house, where he is the butt of his boss's jokes because he's so hesitant and reserved. When he walks in on him having sex with another employee, the boss offers to hook Owen up, but he declines. He still lives at home and takes care of his father without having much of a bond with him.
On the way home one night, Owen sees a collapsed pylon. Charred pages of the episode guide to The Pink Opaque flutter down and he realises they outline the Season Six opener that was never made. Puzzled, Owen heads to the supermarket, where he is astonished to see Maddy in one of the aisles. He tries to hug her, but she is unresponsive and insists that they need to talk urgently.
They meet at a bar, where Phoebe Bridgers and Kristina Esfandiari are playing with their respective bands, Sloppy Jane and King Woman. Maddy asks Owen if he has ever had the experience of his life seeming to merge with what he sees on TV before confiding that she has spent the intervening years inside their favourite show. When he looks askance, she reminds him of the final episode, in which Mr Melancholy had abducted Tara and removed her heart before poisoning Isabel with luna juice and burying her alive.
As he watches at home, Owen convinces himself that he is Isabel and thrusts his head through the TV screen in an effort to pull himself into the show. Hearing the commotion, Frank pulls him out and orders him to calm down and wash off the broken glass, as his son vomits luna juice and bellows, `This isn't my home! You're not my father!'
The next night, Owen meets Maddy again at a makeshift planetarium. She explains that she has been wandering trying to find somewhere to belong. While in Phoenix, Arizona, she had been unable to deal with her sense of rage at the phoniness of the world that she had asked a workmate at a shopping mall to bury her alive in a coffin. When she tried to get out, however, she discovered that the soil had become compacted and she passed out, only to find herself as Tara in the world of The Pink Opaque. She had realised that this was her true self and she explains how she had escaped from the `midnight realm' in which Mr Melancholy had tried to trap her.
As Tara, Maddy had searched for Isabel's grave because she knew she would find Owen inside. As they talk on the school football field, she tells Owen that the only way he can emerge from his false self is to be buried alive in order to pass into the realm of The Pink Opaque and join her in starting Season Six. Something holds him back, however, and, telling Maddy that they're in the suburbs not the midnight realm, he pushes her over and flees to the safety of home, where he finds Frank having a stroke. He never sets eyes on Maddy again.
Remaining in the family home after Frank dies from a second stroke, Owen persuades himself he's happy. Yet, despite marrying and having a family of his own, he can't shake the feeling that he has missed his destiny and the different life that he could have had if he had held his nerve. As the cinema had closed down, he followed his boss to the family entertainment centre, where his job is to refill the ball pit. One night, he catches an episode of The Pink Opaque on a streaming service and is dismayed how cheap and cheesy it now seems, as he watches a little girl suggest to an Ice Cream monster that it could make itself useful during the winter by selling soup.
Two decades pass to bring events to 2030. Owen is still at the centre, but moves slowly because of debilitating asthma. One day, during a child's birthday party, Owen interrupts the cake ceremony to scream out that he is dying. Nobody tries to help him, as an awkward silence descends. Shuffling away to the bathroom, Owen stands in front of the mirror and uses a box cutter to open his chest to reveal a television screen showing The Pink Opaque glowing inside him. Seemingly not incapacitated by creating such a wound, Owen returns to the party and, despite nobody seeming to notice him, he mutters his apologies for spoiling the occasion and blames a change in his medication.
As is often the case when a film has critics reaching exclusively for superlatives or pejoratives, the truth lies somewhere in between. Jane Schoenbrun should be commended for their aesthetic acumen and witty self-reflexivity, as this earnest allegory is often visually dazzling. The allusions to Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon (1902), David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983), David Lynch's Twin Peaks (1990-91), and Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (2001) are intelligently used, while the pastiches of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) are fondly satirical without ever being patronising. Production designer Brandon Tonner-Connolly particularly impresses, as the action passes through time frames, fictional milieux, and everyday realities that are utilised to reflect the psychological state of the characters.
Cinematographer Eric Yue and editor Sofi Marshall similarly enable Schoenbrun to convey interiority through 35mm imagery. The performances of Ian Foreman and Justice Smith as the endlessly empathetic Owen and Brigette Lundy-Paine as the volatilely intense, but elusive Maddy are equally effective. Mention should also be made of chameleonic dancer Emma Portner, who not only plays Amanda, but also Mr Melancholy, his henchman, Marco, and the Evil Clown. Surely Emma Stone (who is among the producers with husband Dave McCary) would be impressed?
For some, however, the storytelling will seem less assured, particularly after Maddy returns. While she and Owen are tentatively sounding each other out, the action has an aching aura of authenticity, as two vulnerable individuals seek to determine whether the other is trustworthy enough not to trample on their pre-occupations and dreams. But the script lacks conviction in presenting Maddy's claim and her suggestion as to how Owen can join her in the world of make believe they take so seriously. Consequently, the business with the burial and head-butting the screen feels strained and it's not until Owen sees The Pink Opaque and re-evaluates its quality that the narrative gets back on track.
Yet, one shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is less an exercise in demythologising fandom nostalgia than a hymn to the timeless possibility of elsewhere and a metaphorical treatise on the trans experience known as `the egg crack' (Schoenbrun began developing the film during the early stages of hormone therapy). Maddy recognises that Owen doesn't belong and that her favourite show may help him navigate a passage towards where he is supposed to be. The burial becomes, therefore, a symbol of the entombment from which a trans person has to emerge in order to become their preferred self. From this perspective, therefore, events take on a validity and a deeply personal significance that sixtysomething heteronormative critics are too cocooned to grasp. Yet, while they may lament a diminution of the control that made We're All Going to the World's Fair so credible, disconcerting, and compelling, even they can still admire the sincerity of the message and the artistic audacity of its dissemination.
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