Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand

Sometimes when I experience a film that is working, I am amazed at all the chance events that occurred to bring it to my soul.

Film is a collaborative endeavor, so right at the start you need the various chance meetings that bring a team together, plus all the chance occurrences in each of their pasts that make them valued collaborators. That's true with the viewer as collaborator too, but there you have the additional mechanism of market forces. That collection of boundaries and channels is profoundly fickle and arbitrary, so if an artwork finds itself to you through commercial means, its been through a cosmic pinball machine with millions of lost siblings.

Sometimes — nay often — the subject of the film is about chance as well. That's the case in the uniquely cinematic notion of noir, which imposes a notion of arbitrariness of fate on ordinary people. Usually the noir "chance" is a result of those external, collaborative constellation of chance I mentioned earlier.

Now this. People living simple lives caught up in war, decades and decades of it, that rumbles into their lives by accident. You, dear reader, may choose to see this in the context of realism, of near-documentary. That's easy to do: the actors are all refugee children from the area. Their disfigured bodies are genuine. Their faces absolute. The situation is upon us. But I cannot escape seeing this as noir shown in the large.

The key idea of noir is that the viewer by his or her existence, bends the world of the film in such a way that coincidence, chance, manipulates the citizens of that world in odd ways that matter to us. Sometimes its mere amusement, a cruel bargain. In nonfilm life, real life of pain, this happens too, as decisions are made — often in remote and protected places — that change lives, that perturb by chance.

Here we have that folded: the reality of noir politics; the politics of noir film. It works in part because the kids connect. The one false ring here is that of the two main characters, one is a teenage girl. We learn of her special misery, and that forms the core of the construction. But she is lovely, beautiful in a pure sense that is non-Arab or Kurd in nature. This film is made by a Persian about Arab Kurds. In truth, there is scant racial homogeneity among Arabs: the designation is like "Hispanic" and is the identification is linguistic. But the features of this girl are not native to the area. Its as if we had Audrey Hepburn playing a slave girl. Surely there is a Persian/Aryan subtext here. Would we connect more if the girl were more typical? It hurts to think not.

But otherwise, the thing is so true, you will be swept up in it. Orphans who survive by clearing mines, many of them limbless. Wait until you see an armless boy collecting mines with his mouth to survive. Wait until you see all this with cinematic scope, framing and intimacy when required. There's no experimentation here: here cinematic techniques are all safe, muted for effect.

Here's the interesting thing for me. The construction, story-wise, is complex. It builds and elaborates. It has many threads. It mixes delicate, human things with grand, soft and puzzling ones. It fails. By that I mean it fails in controlling the construction. It ends badly. The shape is twisted and broken. Its bad storytelling. And yet that's so apt, and so reflective of the reality it references you wonder if it was deliberate, or merely a chance.

(There's a business about "trading arms" that's a bit precious.)

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

It's an excellent work Ghobadi did. When the movie finished I couldn't leave the chair for the next 10 minutes. I ran to the toilet to finish my crying. It reminded me of how little I'm aware what's going on in the world, even next door to where I was born and my own childhood.It reminded me that the humanity in me hasn't died yet but needed to be woken up. It's about a tough life where the kids are in charge of adults and more mature than them. The movie gives a clear picture of a bunch on refugee Kurds on their own land. Ghobadi cleverly draws the picture of a disaster in the Middle East: The Kurds, who has been on that land for thousand of years but still don't own a flag and their struggles between Turkey, Iraq,Iran and America.

Any one, who is interested in a bit of information about what's going on over there as well as the other problems in the area should see this movie. A black comedy in some ways when you can't help smiling while crying.

The trauma of war has been an issue much covered in cinema, but in this film, we are shown the impact that it has on those who are most innocent of all – the children. The orphaned children are a range of interesting characters presented to us here, from Satellite, a sharp TV programmer to Pashow, an armless but still doggedly determined boy. The supporting children are shown as bright eyed watchers of war, eagerly awaiting it so that they can try their hand at the missiles, which, at first sounds amusing, but then escalates into something much more horrific, and we follow their misadventures through grainy camera-work, improvised dialogue and flashbacks.

The performances delivered by the children are nothing short of astounding. In the lead, Soran Ebrahim is in parts a mixture of caprice, zest and energy, and it is he who grasps our heart and makes for the first, slightly more light-hearted part of the film. In a completely different role, Avaz Latif is the film's heartbreak, and the one that endures the worst. Her performance is wordless, but she manages to portray all her deepest emotions through a look or gesture. When we delve deeper into the plot to realise exactly how much her character has suffered, it is then that the horror of war kicks in.

Turtles Can Fly is not one for the easily depressed. Truth be told, after watching it, I was still in tears for several minutes, utterly helpless and wishing that something could be done about the constant loss of innocence. Its message is blatant, and though a bleak one, presented in a harsh, disturbing war, makes a welcome change from all the Left, Right and Centre propaganda given to us in the Media. Turtles is a film that speaks for itself; no advertising needed.

Among the hundred reasons I could list for you to go see this film, the first is the main character Kak "Satellite." He is truly a unique character - the likes of which I've never seen before. It is pretty impressive for a filmmaker to create something new - an on screen person so real, so normal, yet so different than anything we've seen. From the opening moments of the movie you feel you are getting to know a real human being. Satellite and the refugee children whose trust and love he's earned are the stars of this film. I don't think I've ever seen child performers better than some of these kids - if you were blown away by the children in movies like "City of God," this is a another one to look at in terms of performances. Stylistically this film is in a different category - it's a beautifully realistic movie - it's narrative unfolds effortlessly. You never feel you are watching a carefully crafted plot. You feel you are observing events that are happening - and yet it all, in retrospect, is well planned and crafted. The filmmakers and actors deserve much credit for creating a movie with its own touching and realistic voice.

Watching this movie is an incredibly absorbing (and even physical) experience. It is amazing how the young cast (non-professionals, some of them actually lived in refugee camps along the Iraq-Turkish border) deliver such powerful performances. This is also a huge compliment to the director Bahman Gohbadi who directed the children and teens. Although the film depicts the nightmare where these children live in, it has also some comic moments, making it even more believable and real life. And what's more: the film never gets sentimental.

For me it is one of the best movies I have seen in the last few years. Not uplifting (I really needed a drink after wards) and a film you will not easily forget. On the other hand the story does provide sparkles of hope and the main characters are true survivors. So don't miss it when it plays in a theater near you! "Turtles Can Fly" won the audience award of the International Filmfestival in Rotterdam 2005 (Netherlands).