FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
TURTLES CAN FLY
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
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