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Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly. Amanda Holland HDFS 892- Summer 2013 Movie Review. Important Information . Released in 2004 Director: Bahman Ghobadi (native of Kurdistan) Music: Hossein Alizadeh First film to be made in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein Subtitles- all speaking is in Kurdish

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Turtles Can Fly

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  1. Turtles Can Fly Amanda Holland HDFS 892- Summer 2013 Movie Review

  2. Important Information • Released in 2004 • Director: BahmanGhobadi (native of Kurdistan) • Music: HosseinAlizadeh • First film to be made in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein • Subtitles- all speaking is in Kurdish • Available on Netflix streaming

  3. Setting • Place • Kurdish Refugee Camp • On the Iraqi-Turkish Border • Time Period • Right before the US Invasion of Iraq • Saddam falls during the film

  4. Main Characters

  5. Satellite • 13 year old boy who got his name by installing satellites and other technology in villages. • He is the leader of the children in the village. They dig for mines and he trades them for things that are needed. • He falls for Agrin, and tries to help her and her family survive in the refugee camp. • He gets hurt in this film while trying to save Riga from a field of landmines. • The adults in the camp rely on him to translate the news so they know when the US is going to invade

  6. Agrin and Riga • Agrin- one of the many orphan children in the camp. Satellite falls for her, but she pushes him away because of the trauma she has endured. • Riga- Agrin’s child. This isn’t revealed until later in the film, when a scene is shown of Agrin being raped by men in the Iraqi Army when the village they were living in was destroyed. Riga is blind and wanders around. Agrin tries many times to kill him because she can’t handle the pain that his presence brings to her. Eventually she succeeds.

  7. Hengov • Agrin’s brother. • His arms were blown off by a bomb, so he disarms landmines with his teeth. • He can tell the future (to an extent). • Saves Agrin’s child many times from death, mostly because Agrin was trying to kill the child. • He is attached to Riga, and tries to take care of him the best way he knows how.

  8. Some of the other children in the Refugee Camp

  9. Synopsis: • This movie is set right before the US Invasion of Iraq, and the fall of Saddam. It is a haunting view of war from the perspective of the children. • The refugee village is populated and run almost entirely by children and teens. There are a few adults, but they don’t actually do much except wait for the US to invade. • The children try to rid the land around them of landmines that were put there by Saddam. They then go on to sell them in order to buy other things, like satellites for the camp. • Most everyone is just waiting around for the war to start, and worrying about what will happen once the US does in fact get to them. • Many of the children in the movie have been harmed in some way by the war, both physically and emotionally. • Satellite falls for Agrin in the film, and tries to help her in any way that he can. This niceness eventually extends to her brother, Hengov, and her child Riga.

  10. Reaction: • This film was hard to watch. I had to do it in small increments because it was just so emotionally driven. • Even though this film was only 1.5 hours long and fictional, it was a haunting portrayal of what war does to children. The message it sends is that war can have both a physical and emotional impact on the development of youth. • In addition, it shows that generations of people can be lost because of war. If you watch the film, you will see that there are elders in the refugee village, and many, many children. • I was amazed to find out that most of the people in this film were actually refugees in a camp, instead of actors. This made the feelings they were showing even more real than I had previously thought.

  11. Recommendations/Global Impacts: • I would recommend this film to any youth professional who is going to be working with war-torn populations. There are so many things that I would have never thought about had it not been for watching this film. For example, I would have never considered how many orphans may exist because of the war in Iraq, and how they are growing up without good role models. • There are many impacts that can be seen throughout this film. The impact of the US on foreign nations is one thing that comes to mind. The Kurds considered the US to be their saviors. • This film was well worth the time it took to watch it, and gave me a new perspective on the impact of war.

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