She is famous in her country, Turkish actress Merve Dizdar. But hardly beyond. The language barrier, no doubt. Not culture, because beyond words, her feelings are pure, as she proved by receiving her interpretation prize at the last Cannes Film Festival. “I would like to dedicate this prize to all the women who, upon their arrival in the world, must lead a struggle in this geography where I live…”
A committed actress
Already rewarded in Antalya in 2022 for her role in the Turkish film Snow and the Bear, Merve Dizdar was careful not to mention Turkey on May 27 on the Croisette, but everyone understood the extent of a commitment which resembles that of the character of Nuray that she embodies in Dried herbsthe latest film by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
We did not wait for MeToo to tell ourselves that an adult does not have to forge privileged links with young adolescent girls. Not Samet, a drawing teacher in the school of a small Anatolian village (Deniz Celiloglu) who pulls the string of favoritism a little too much until it bursts in his face.
And this is not the only blunder that will make this pathetic hero, frenzied individualist, who never stops acting out of time, for lack of clairvoyance or cowardice. Quite the opposite of Nuray, the former university friend whom he finds by chance and who embodies Merve Dizdar.
A handicap, not an obstacle
Concerned about the ambitions of some and the sufferings of others, Nuray is, like her interpreter, aware of “the geography where she lives” and of what is happening there. Especially since the young woman in the film lost a leg in a terrorist attack. The heroine, if one was needed, it’s her. “My character, who thinks only of becoming herself again after her amputation, tells Merve Dizdar, at least suggests that a handicap should not be an obstacle in life. »
And Samet will eventually understand it, when Nuray will have returned to him a reflection of himself as he is: blinded by his selfishness. In this, the character embodied by Merve Dizdar corresponds perfectly to the female roles of previous films by a filmmaker who, from Climates in 2006 at winter sleep palme d’or in 2014, like nothing better than to reveal during long dialogues all the arrogance, the weaknesses and the prejudices of the male protagonists.
A hint of desire
“I wonder each time what would happen if two characters who are a priori very close, but with antagonistic positions, came face to face to talk about it?, asks Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Write such a scene for Dried herbs was one of my great motivations because, in reality, this type of person does not meet often. »
The great talent of the Turkish filmmaker, many times awarded at Cannes, is to make this meeting not only possible, but hoped for, like the culmination of a flirtation which rings a little false, because played out of time. But who will have at least had the merit of hatching between them a hint of desire in the cold snowy landscapes of Anatolia.