TURTLES CAN FLY
Directed, Produced & Written by: Bahman Ghobadi.
Director of Photography: Shahriar Assadi.
Edited by: Moustafa Khergheposh-Hayedeh Safiyari.
Music by: Housein Alizadeh.
Released by: IFC.
Language: Kurdish with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Iran/Iraq. 95 min. Not Rated.
With: Avaz Latif, Soran Ebrahim & Hiresh Feysal Rahman.

Dozens of TV antennas spring up on a hilltop per the directions of a 13-year-old ringleader appropriately nicknamed Satellite (Soran Ebrahim). Good reception is particularly in strong demand as Kurdish villagers hunger for any information about the impending American-led invasion. Satellite is a kind of black market Artful Dodger, whether haggling for a satellite dish or combing the countryside with his gang for unexploded mines to sell to the United Nations. At first sight, he is smitten by the arrival of Agrin (Avaz Latif), 15, a newly arrived refugee living in a nearby camp. He's at her service, carrying pales of water or diving into a pond to catch goldfish for her, none of which gets him so much as barely a word. However, this harmless display of attention further triggers a destructive self-loathing reaction in Agrin, which includes a suicide attempt. Her parents were killed by Saddam Hussein's army, and she now shares her tent with two family members: her armless brother, Hangao (Hiresh Feysal Rahman), who uses only his teeth to defuse mines, and a blind toddler.

Set in Kurdish Iraq with nonprofessional actors, Turtles Can Fly is neo-realistic with a touch of magic surrealism; Hangao can see into the future, and in one case, saves many lives. It has a more linear narrative in comparison to Ghobadi's earlier A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), an episodic slice-of-life also about Kurdish orphaned children. Like that film, Ghobadi is concerned with the long-term repression of the Kurds and its effects on the young. He isn't one to shy away from an extended close-up of a crying child. Unlike Drunken Horses, Turtles is less hopeful, where the past cannot be erased and one tragedy is layered on another. Apart from the confidant and resourceful Satellite, who can turn an abandoned tank into a home, the youth here are tragic figures as opposed to fully developed characters, unlike, for example, the juveniles in the recent Iranian drama Deserted Station. The film's impact, in terms of storytelling and the horrific fate of this refugee family, is lessened by the showing of what happens to a character in the opening sequence. Another, more successful, effort by Ghobadi is the bittersweet and vivacious Marooned in Iraq (2002), which also deals with the Kurdish diaspora. Kent Turner
February 18, 2005