Place, Loneliness, and Existence: The Phenomenology of Space in About Dry Grasses from the Perspectives of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty

Studies on the representation of space in cinema have gained conceptual depth particularly since the 2000s, influenced by thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Henri Lefebvre. This study examines how the Anatolian steppe is represented as a phenomenological ground in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film About Dry Grasses (2023). In the film, space is not merely a physical backdrop for the narrative but functions as a lived domain that shapes the characters’ existential orientation, temporal perception, and ethical positioning. Drawing on Edmund Husserl’s concepts of the “lived body” (Leib) and the “lifeworld” (Lebenswelt), as well as Maurice Merleau Ponty’s notions of “chiasm” (intertwining) and “embodiment,” the study analyzes the tactile, visual, and temporal relationship between character and space. The research is conducted using a qualitative methodology. Six visual frames selected from the film are analyzed through the lens of phenomenological film analysis. Each scene is examined in terms of framing, color, tactility, intentionality, and ethical-political dimensions, and these analyses are contextualized within the film’s broader narrative structure. The findings indicate that in About Dry Grasses, the steppe is not simply a spatial setting, but an active component that shapes the characters’ psychic and bodily existence. The film renders space as a perceptible, resistant, and directive ground, transforming the viewer from a passive observer into an embodied perceiver. In this respect, the study opens a phenomenological discussion of spatial perception in Turkish cinema and offers an original contribution to the notion of “sensory thinking” in film analysis.