If it surprised many people, the Prize for Best Actress awarded to Merve Dizdar is more than deserved, as the actress made a strong impression in Nuri Bilge’s film Ceylan, to be seen at the cinema.
WHAT DOES IT TALK ABOUT ?
Samet is a young teacher in a remote village in Anatolia. While he has been waiting for his transfer to Istanbul for several years, a series of events makes him lose all hope. Until the day he meets Nuray, a young teacher like him…
WONDERFUL WONDER
Saturday May 27, 2023. While the predictions were in favor of Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest) or Alicia Vikander (The Queen’s Game), it was the name of Merve Dizdar that resounded when the winner of the Best Actress Award at the 76th Cannes Film Festival has been announced.
To the almost general surprise, both for the public and the main interested party, who immediately admits to being “so moved that words fail me, and I feel like I have forgotten Turkish, my mother tongue”before bursting out laughing on the stage of the Palais de Festivals.
Unknown in France, even if she appears in the credits of the series Le Touche-à-tout on Netflix, the actress illuminates the new river drama by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. At the scale of 3h17 that the film lasts, which was not the longest of this last Cannes Festival, its role is secondary within a cast (and a village) very masculine.
Memento Distribution Merve Dizdar in “Dried Herbs”
But it is difficult, not to say impossible, to miss it. Both his character and his energy radiate these Dry Herbs. Particularly during a very successful dinner scene, tense like a thriller, where she lets all the intensity of her acting speak. And a commitment that is also expressed outside the screen, far from the fixed frames of paintings by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
After thanking her partners and her director, and without being interrupted by the music asking her to return to her chair, Merve Dizdar entered the second part of her speech. The more political one, which earned him the title of “terrorist” by some leaders of the AKP, the Justice and Development Party to which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan belongs.
I was born in a country where I don’t even need to learn, observe or repeat, because I know very well what it is to be a woman in Turkey
“I dreamed of winning this prize”recognizes its winner. “And I had prepared a little speech that I would like to read to you: the character I play in the film, Nuray, is someone who is fighting for his existence and who has overcome many difficulties.”
“I normally would have had to work on this role to play it well, but I was born in a country where I don’t even have to learn, observe or repeat, because I know very well what it is. “is what it is to be a woman in Turkey. I would like to dedicate this award to all the women who, like Muray, fight to overcome difficulties, to exist in this world. And to keep hope.”
Of hope and better days, it is precisely question in the characters of Dry Herbs, eager to leave their village to open up a horizon. A film certainly demanding, by its duration or its long scenes of dialogue in fixed shot, but in which we manage to let ourselves be carried away. And where Merve Dizdar, certainly one of the revelations of this cinema year, captures all the light and attention as soon as she enters the frame.