Hi friends in this article let us see about a Kurdish film called "TURTLES CAN FLY".In Persian this film is called as "Lakposhtha ham parvaz mikonand".This film mainly concentrates on the children of Iraq.This film is slow, yet we can enjoy the performance of all these child actors.
The film was set on a a Kurdish refugee camp, which is located on the Iraq - Turkish border.Many refugees come to this camp and most of the children who usually come to this camp have lost their parents.These children's in this camp usually spend their day by taking the land mines which was set by the Americans and Iraq soldiers.
Another important aspect in this film is the character called "satellie" and he is the most amazing character in the film.He is like boss to all these children, but he is also very kind to them.He helsp all the children in the surrounding villages near the border and he is also responsible for bringing the dish to the nearby village, so that people could watch news about the war.
Pashaw and Shirkooh were the assistants to Satellite and they are very loyal to them and they do whatever work assigned by Satellite.These two character have added some humor to the film and they look very innocent.Their performance must be appreciated, because in each and every scene they appear they have acted with with full zeal and spirit.
The way in which Satellite helps and control all the refugee children was excellent and more than that the essence of humor was also added to this.Even though he dominates others, he does all these things only for the benefit of the children located there as they had no other hope for getting food.
Another important characters in the film is the young girl Agrin and her brother, Hengov along with a small kid.At first everybody thought the kid was the younger brother to them.But later in the film we can find the truth why Agrin heates that kid and why she want to kill that kid.
These refugee children's will collect the mines and they will sell them to get money.It is with the help of this money they run their life.The most important aspect of the film is the cinematography.Really it was very pleasant to watch all the locations.They have shown how beautiful Iraq will be and more than that they have also show that the fall of Sadaam Hussain in a positive sense, as people suffered under his role.
Eventhough the pace of the movie is slow to an extent, still we can enjoy the theme of the movie.Most of the locations in the movie are mountains and valleys and they are extremely pleasant to watch.This is Kurdish movie and hence you should need subtitles,unless you know the language.
The director has made this movie in a fantastic way and also maintained an International standard.This film is very complex to understand as it directly shows the effects of war.These war made the people to migrated form one place to another and they do only for their protection.It also explains the effect of war, i.e whenever a war takes place between two Nations, only the innocent people suffer a lot.
When it comes to the tile of the movie, really I was not in a position to understand it.Then, when I browsed and search to get its meaning Ive founds this is a metaphor and it reflects to the Kurdish people and their suffereings sue to the war.But the director Bahman Ghobadi has explained the meaning for the title, as follows
"In their long life, they(turtles) live partly on water and partly on land. This is symbolic for me of the joy and anguish and migration of the Kurds. The slow-moving turtle is like the Kurds: With all of our problems, we have managed to move forward, and we always end up upright"
It was also mentioned that the director has related turtle to the character of Hengov(who was armless) and the director also stated that while he was shooting the film near a pond he found a turtle and he related it to the character of Hengov and then of the Kurds.