Turtles Can Fly

America’s Invasion Hit Parade
The Kurdish View
By Cole Smithey

On the eve of the 2003 US-led invasion of Baghdad, a Kurdish refugee camp near the Turkish border is the ravaged site for director Bahman Ghobadi’s trenchant look at a violently oppressed people hoping for salvation in the guise of their mutilated children. A self-possessed 13-year-old boy named Soren (AKA "Satellite") unites his impoverished community by linking up satellite dishes for his neighbors to receive news broadcasts about the looming US attacks. "Satellite" makes a living by salvaging landmines that are sold to UN peacekeeping troops. Since many of the area’s children have suffered the loss of arms and legs due to mines, they are predisposed to risking their lives in the dangerous job of locating and disarming the horrendous devices. "Turtles Can Fly" is a poignant movie that intimately captures the cataclysmic effects of military despotism on human beings, and children in specific.

Satellite becomes infatuated with an attractive refugee girl named Agrin who wanders into the village with her armless brother Hengov and her blind little boy Rega. Rega is the consequence of a rape by Iraqi soldiers that has left Agrin suicidal. Satellite digests leaflets dropped from American war planes. They read, "We will make this country a paradise… We are the best," he attempts to woo Agrin by swimming in a polluted lake that he insists teems with large red fish.

President Bush’s televised post 9/11 propaganda disinforms the refugee Kurds, "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." Satellite discovers the physical limits of his quickly adaptable intellect that has him opportunistically saying "hello" to American military invaders. The insanity of America’s zooming military occupation takes an effect on the impoverished refugee children who attempt to look at every dismembered object with unfounded optimism. "Turtles Can Fly" is a bleak yet hopeful movie that breaks your heart with an invisible crack that never goes away.

Not Rated. 97 mins. (B+) (Four Stars)