Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly is a beautiful depiction of the trial and tribulation faced by children in wartime Iraq. The blend of day-to-day experiences common to people everywhere with the traumatic experience of war, faced by too many already gives rise to a very moving film. It is a glimpse into they eyes of humanity in the face of war.

Director/writer Bahman Ghobadi creates very unique mise-en-scene in order to portray to the audience the hellish bleakness of pre-war and wartime Iraq. He truly showed how harsh of a world the Kurdish refugee camps are and how post-apocalyptic the entire movie seems to be. The camera filters, the positions of the camera, the haunting pictures of the landscape, and even the silence come together to show a descriptive and devastating world.

The characters in Turtles Can Fly are rich with background, personality, and story. From Satellite, the protagonist who is the leader of his own private army of orphaned children, to Pashow, the clairvoyant and persistent and determined orphan boy, to Agrin, the grim, silent girl who's ultimate acts of desperation bring the film to a haunting close. The child actors are amazingly talented and they truly bring their characters to "life".

Turtles Can Fly is one of the few movies that I can say with confidence, has two separate emotional levels. There is a shallow emotional layer that is much lighter and heart-warming, then there is a much deeper, depressing and saddening layer. The contrast between these two layers of emotion has been balanced beautifully. The children are perfectly suited for the acting roles they play (since they are basically playing themselves) and for the most part, all they have to do is be children. They must play and interact with each other in the same way children do. This is primarily what makes up the lighter, shallower emotional layer. But then, the children must also be exposed to wartime horrors that quite simply, wrench their young innocence away from them as a rapist would torture a virgin. It is deeply horrifying and depressing on an emotional level that I have rarely seen in American films. Loss of innocence seems to be a continuous theme throughout the movie and the audience is constantly reminded of this theme by scenes displaying things that most children are never faced with in their lives.

Another persistent theme is the emotional helplessness faced by the orphans. Theirs is a constant and conflicting emotional roller coaster. The children are at heart, children, but in mind, they are survivors. The contrast from these separate roles is exquisite and in a way, haunting.

By Blair Kim

Blogged with the Flock Browser