Movies - Turtles Can Fly

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	Movies - Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly (Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand in Persian and Kûsî jî dikarin bifirin in Kurdish) is a 2004 film written and directed by Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi. It is the first film to be made in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Plot

The film is set in a Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. Thirteen-year-old Kak (played by Soran Ebrahim) is known as "Satellite" for his installation of dishes and antennae for local villages looking for news of Saddam. He is the dynamic leader of the children, organizing the dangerous but necessary sweeping and clearing of the minefields. He then arranges trade-ins for the unexploded mines. The industrious Soran falls for an unlikely orphan named Agrin (Avaz Latif), a sad-faced girl traveling with her brother Henkov, who appears to have the gift of clairvoyance. The siblings are care-taking a three-year-old, whose connection to the pair is discovered as harsh truths are revealed.

The question is, what happened to these children? There are so many, will the occupation make their lives better or worse? How could it get worse? The movie begins with the refugee camp recovering from an attack by Turkish soldiers, then the occupation of US forces they hope will save them. What happened to them?

Review

Turtles Can Fly (2004), so far, is the most polished work of Bahman Ghobadi, the young director whose previous movie, “A Time for Drunken Horses” (2000), was quite successful in the States. The film takes place on the border of Iran, Iraq and Turkey in a refugee camp mostly accommodating Kurdish Iraqis, right before the invasion. The main challenge of these refugees is to stay alive; they see the invasion as the turning point, something that would bring an end to their helpless lives by overthrowing a vicious government whose activities have brought nothing but suffering and destruction. It is quite fascinating that Ghobadi has employed children of various ages as his main characters. It is the permanent impact of such a devastating condition on children that he is mostly interested. These are the children who never had a chance to experience a true “childhood”: hunger, poverty and the war that has destroyed their homes and killed their parents have precociously exposed them to poignant realities of life.

In the second half of the movie we discover that Rega (the small child) who Agrin (15 year old girl) carries on her back, is not her little brother but her son, the outcome of violent rape when the Iraqi army invaded her village. The memory is so distressing and unbearable for her that she eventually decides to kill Rega who is the constant reminder of her bleak short life. The penetrating wounds of the harsh living condition do not end here. Next we are introduced to Hangao, her real brother, who has lost both his arms in a mine explosion. The scene that he unscrews the trigger of a mine with his teeth is dreadfully chilling. The scene, however, at the same time depicts the resilience of the children, the fact that despite all the shortcoming, they learn to adjust to their needs.

Probably the main character of the movie is Kak (Soran Ebrahim) who in known with his nickname, Satellite. He is a 13-year-old entrepreneur whose main skill is setting up satellite dishes for news-hungry refugees. We don’t see his parents (if they are still alive) or any relative. It appears that Satellite like other kids who work for him is an orphan. He has a very loyal assistant, Pasheo (Saddam Hossein Feysal) who is another victim of mine explosion; his right leg is nonfunctional, but he also has learned how effectively replace it with a single crutch. The scene where he plays with his bad leg as a machine gun to cheer up crying Rega, not only is visually heart-wrenching, but also portrays how these children despite such a vastly traumatic life, have not lost their souls. He does not look at his leg as a handicap; but quite naturally, by using it as a machine gun, he finds a function for it. Kak with the help of Pasheo leads the refugee camp; forget about the adults, if they have a problem, they turn to Kak. Let’s look at the scene where he trades a sack full of radios and some money to purchase a satellite dish for a customer, or when he goes to a gun market to rent couple of guns right before the invasion. All his activities, however, are not as safe; indeed, one of the main sources of their income is collecting unexploded mines (some of which he used to pay for the guns). The lucrative mine business at time becomes very expensive, Hangao’s arms and Pasheo’s leg. Although it seems he is too busy to ponder on these incidents, or his cynicism may assume this is a fair price for what they gain. He loves Americans and impatiently waiting for their arrival, which would mean a different life for him. Upon hearing the sound of an American helicopter, he announces “the sound of an American passport.”

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