Review of Turtles Can Fly (2004) by Cli O — 02 Dec 2008

Turtles Can Fly (Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand) is a provocative film set near the Turkish-Iraqi border at the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The DVD box had some words like "inspirational" and "comedy" on it, but I would have to say I didn't see much of that; maybe words like "evocative" and "eye-opening" or something.

The film is the first to be made in Iraq since the fall of Saddam, and is a joint Iraq-Iran production. It is about refugee children who have banded together because they've all lost their parents or have become displaced, and their only means of survival is to unearth land mines and sell them at the market.

Needless to say, it is a dangerous profession, and a few of the children have missing limbs as a result. I think it is a pretty depressing film, but an important one, because I would not have known about how these kinds of things happen in our world without it.

It has some pretty heavy themes, from the responsibility of the leadership role of a 13 year old kid, to this little girl who had been raped when her village was stormed and so has a child and wants to commit suicide and murder her kid.

It makes you think of what countlessly intense issues other people have to deal with, and how violence as a way of life affects everyone, even kids.