About Dry Grasses – 7

I felt I was watching My Dinner With Andre, times three or four, held in a rural, charmless Turkish village in winter, in the snow. The “hero” tested the viewer’s sympathy by lying to his student, psychologically abusing her, betraying his roommate, taking advantage of a disabled woman and being a crappy teacher. But he was never at a loss for words. And he was an exceptional photographer, in an aside that was extraneous to the plot. Even though everything moved slowly, at length, over the film’s 3:20 I didn’t quite catch who some of the characters were. Or why our hero walked out of his village into a movie studio at one point. I will say that after thinking I would leave after an hour, I fell into the film’s rhythm–it was well made–and made it to spring, when the dry grasses appeared out of nowhere.