Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand
Tags: murder, flashback

Plot synopsis:
The film is set in the Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. Thirteen-year-old Satellite (Soran Ebrahim) is known for his installation of dishes and antennae (for local villages who are looking for news of Saddam Hussein) and for his limited knowledge of English. He is the dynamic, but manipulative leader of the children, organizing the dangerous but necessary sweeping and clearing of the minefields. Many of these children are injured one way or the other, yet still maintain a boisterous prattle whenever possible, devoted to their work in spite of the vagaries of their life.
The industrious Satellite arranges trade-ins for undetonated mines. He falls for an orphan named Agrin, assisting her whenever possible in order to win her over. She is a perpetual dour-faced girl who is part bitter, part lost in thought, unable to escape the demons of the past. Traveling with her is her disabled, but very caring brother Hengov, who appears to have the gift of clairvoyance, though he seems to have a bad reputation for it. The siblings stay with a blind toddler named Riga. On course, we come to know that Agrin gave birth to him after she was gang raped by soldiers (In Agrin and Hengov's village, the girls had been killed after being raped, while the boys and their families were plain butchered. Hengov's arms had been shot as the soldiers attempted to drown both children). Throughout the film, we see how Agrin has been unable to accept Riga (who according to Agrin mysteriously unties his tethered leg and walks at night and returns to the camp safely despite his claims of being blind) as anything besides a taint, a continuous reminder of a brutal past.
Agrin tries to abandon the child on multiple occasions, until finally she ties him to a rock and throws him to the bottom of the lake, afterwards committing suicide herself by jumping from a cliff. When her brother sees a vision of his loved ones drowning, he hurries out of the tent crying and tries to salvage whatever can be. However, his nightmare is late & indeed all is lost by then. On his way to the lake, a flashback of Agrin in her final moments haunts Hengov standing on the abandoned tanks, Hengov eventually finds his nephew s body at the bottom of the lake but can't cut it loose from the rock partly due to his inability. At last he is seen grieving on the cliff from where Agrin jumped to her death, where he ultimately collects the shoes left behind by Agrin before the fatal leap. By the turn of the events including a disabled Satellite, the same protagonist loses any charm he had about the American intervention and looks away when the American soldiers finally pass close by him.

Review: But this is no fictional, Mad Max world - the story takes place in a village/refugee camp on the border between Kurdish Iraq and Turkey, and the great army the people speak of is the American force come to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
His main source of money is land-mines, digging them up and selling them to dealers, and to help him he employs an army of orphaned kids, many of whom bear the marks of accidents related to their deadly trade, missing and mangled limbs.The film revolves around this anything-but-lonely Satellite, portrayed by Soran Ebrahim as a whirlwind of words and energy, who leads his compatriots through the darkness of a world where family ties have been not just ripped apart but obliterated, where the possibility of death or dismemberment lurks around every rock.
Newly arrived in the village are a girl and her two brothers, one of whom has had his arms blown off, the other of whom is a blind infant with a propensity to sleepwalk; Satellite takes a particular shine to the girl, a pretty but somber creature named Agrin, and tries to impress her by diving into a pond for the red fish that allegedly dwell in its silty depths (he doesn't know that the girl, traumatized by Saddam's soldiers, is far beyond being impressed by anything, and is in fact suicidal).There are no adult characters of any importance in Turtles Can Fly; the only grown-ups are the village elders, a load of cranky, useless worry-worts, and the various shady arms dealers Satellite does business with, who care about nothing but dickering.
There's a certain irony to the elders' concern over the coming invasion - they fear some terrible thing is about to befall them, failing to realize that the earth-shattering event has already happened, that the village and the camp are filled with children whose parents have been killed or fled, that their society has already been torn into a million pieces, and that a different order has begun emerging, one represented by Satellite, who speaks not only the native tongue but English too, who knows about the new ways of technology as well as the old, who doesn't dread the coming of the Americans but awaits it with excitement.
Not only is the story by writer/director Bahman Ghobadi timely, it is one of the most devastatingly real examinations of the people of Iraq in the days before the American preemptive attack: it is more real because the entire story is told through the eyes of children.The action takes place in Kurdistan, Iraq at the Turkish border.
They struggle to make deals for a satellite dish so that they can provide coverage of the war for the elders (they are not allowed to watch Hussein's forbidden channels!), they form rival groups for the monetary aspects of weapons gathering, and they rely on a leader by the name of Satellite (Soran Ebrahim) who appears to be the oldest of the children.
His 'associates' are the crippled boy Pashow (Saddam Hossein Feysal) able to run as fast as even Satellite on a bicycle with just one leg and a crutch; Shirkooh (Ajil Zibari) whose tears flow easily; Hengov (Hiresh Feysal Rahman) who lost his arms to the land mines and has the ability to foresee the future; and the mysterious Agrin (Avaz Latif) the sole girl who with Hengov is caring for a blind two year orphan Riga (Abdol Rahman Karim).The children, all orphans, are on the watch for war they know will come, watch and listen for the Americans to arrive, and struggle for survival under Satellite's organized control.
Director/writer Bahman Ghobadi blends day-to-day experiences common to people everywhere (falling in love, being asked to do something you don't really know how to do, etc ...) , with some of the realities of life in a Kurdish village in Iraq before the (most recent) war, to create an incredibly moving film.
There is horror and humour, honour and compassion.It's beautifully filmed, too, but the power comes totally out of the stories and the kids, who are in effect playing themselves.I saw this at a festival, don't know what kind of distribution it will get, but I strongly recommend anyone who gets the chance going to see it..
Ghobadi cleverly draws the picture of a disaster in the Middle East: The Kurds, who has been on that land for thousand of years but still don't own a flag and their struggles between Turkey, Iraq,Iran and America.Any one, who is interested in a bit of information about what's going on over there as well as the other problems in the area should see this movie.
"Turtles Can Fly," the haunting new film from Iranian writer/director Bahman Ghobadi ("A Time for Drunken Horses"), begins with an arrestingly beautiful image: A young woman (Avaz Latif), resolute in her manner, stands barefoot on a rocky ledge, contemplating a leap that will surely end in death.
Then the camera comes closer to the actress' face, wreathed in tangled brown hair, and we realize, with a start, that she is a child.Ghobadi's film is a story of wounded children, a devastating reminder of the costs of war.
He's the expert in this operation, in the way that kids worldwide seem to know more about technology than their elders, and he's also the ringleader of the village children, who follow him like loyal acolytes.Satellite, in his bulldozer way, soon catches the eye of Agrin, the girl we saw in the opening scene, and he's dazzled by her, gazing at her with Mooney eyes.
I don't think I've ever seen child performers better than some of these kids - if you were blown away by the children in movies like "City of God," this is a another one to look at in terms of performances.
"Turtles can Fly", is a heartbreaking movie with a war that is not shown on TV News where the victims are the children.
Without doubt, any viewer with an open heart and mind will be fully immersed into the world and lives of the young children portrayed in this movie.As well as being a beautiful composition, 'Turtles Can Fly' is one of the strongest and most powerful anti-war movies ever made.
The film's two most moving sequences involve one in which the title character Satellite tries to save small female child from American land mines, and another where the main girl in the story walks towards a cliff where she will contemplate suicide.
It would be hard to imagine a more pertinent and relevant film than "Turtles Can Fly," an Iran/Iraq co-production that, like a modern day version of "Forbidden Games," looks at the horrors of war through the eyes of its most helpless and innocent victims - children.
Another major character is a young girl who was raped by the soldiers who killed her family and who now carries the burden of "shame" that comes with having had a child out of wedlock and whose actions in this realm ultimately lay the groundwork for the story's final tragedy.Given its harsh subject matter, "Turtles Can Fly" - which features wonderful performances from a group of children, some of whom have themselves lost limbs to landmines - is not always easy to watch, but there is a surprising amount of humor in the movie, as well as a tender-hearted compassion for its characters that makes it a compelling, moving experience.
Seen by the right people I believe it could wield the same impact it had on me on them.Don't read too many reviews, just watch this film and be thankful filmmakers as brave as Ghobadi exist to challenge the world in the way he does.Brave.
Out of the blue three kids appear, a girl who Satellite fancies from the moment he sees her, her brother who lost his arms to a land mine, and a 2-3 year old boy, who hold a distance to this group led by Satellite, and it is these three kids who will forever change the minds and souls of the main characters.I don't want to say more, as to not spoil the discovery from the first frame to the last one, but let me tell you that I have never been so moved by a movie in all my life.
One thing that I need to make clear is that maybe if I saw this movie 10 years ago it would not have passed the test of greatness, but being older and a little wiser (plus a father of a 2 year old girl), it hit too close to what as humans we wouldn't want to endure even in the worst times, which isolation, despair and the loss of hope.
This is not the only way, but it takes a lot of time to explain :) Since im a kurd, i find this movie very moving, and very real, except for the armless boy seeing his sister on the tanks at the end.
I think this is an excellent movie, I'll tell you why: First of all the characters are basically kids, they can tell us how the real life is, how they feel about war, and how to continue living with the idea of war coming soon..
If you have any interest in its topics (war, children, land mines, Iraq, Kurds, etc.) you will love this film!
"Turtles Can Fly (Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand)" is a mesmerizing cross between the Mad Max movies and the old Little Rascals serials - except as bizarre as it looks it takes place in a real, contemporary place, not a post-apocalyptic future where kids are all suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.It is a real life Peter Pan story where children really do take on pirates, but these kids have had to grow up too fast in stomach-turning ways, even as they are still childish in their immature and misguided judgments and playful distractions.As in "Nobody Knows (Dare mo shiranai)" that was set in a diametrically opposite urban environment, a man-child rises to broker between children he takes under his wing and the incomprehensible world around them.
This is an upside-down world where tuning in CNN on satellite TV seems both as magical and as plausible as psychic predictions and makes as much sense to physically and emotionally traumatized children who earn their living by harvesting land mines.Startlingly, this takes place at the exact same time as the documentary "Control Room" that was filmed not far away, as the Americans are just about to invade Iraq, so that we with growing dread know more of the broader context about what is about to happen than those on screen, even as a U.S. invasion looks like literally an alien invasion in terms of cultural contrasts.The child actors are extraordinary, particularly those who have or are enacting disabilities.
The story line is simple and involving as we through nightmare flashbacks learn more about each child, though there are some factual impossibilities that are annoyingly jarring and disturb the documentary feel of the film.Set in almost the same beautiful Kurd border terrain as Bahman Ghobadi's previous film of personal lives amidst geopolitical chaos "Marooned in Iraq (Gomgashtei dar Aragh)," the images of life going on in villages and refugee camps are as striking as those in the film "Kandahar (Safar e Ghandehar)." The English subtitles are atrocious, with misspelling and obvious inaccuracies (a truck is called a car for example) and virtually none of the credits are translated, which is not fair to the creators or to the audience.
The remaining bit I won't tell you here  to play spoil sports.This is a starkling movie, just because the images you see on the screen are the images you have never seen before and just for the sheer reality of these children's lives  you gape and think at the absurdity of the war.Director Bahman Ghodabi who had just gone to film the Iraqi war found thounsands of orphan children in villages and the idea of the movie poped his mind.
The movie was filmed in the capital of the Abril Providence, called Ibril in 2004.This is a moving story about a group of Kurdish people living in Refugee camps.
It's taken at least 5 years for to get them both on DVD and I re-watched Turtles Can Fly again with a friend, this evening.I was (once again), along with my friend, shocked, dismayed, highly amused, entertained and in tears AND learned one heck of a lot about how people, NO, children live in a World so different to mine.
The freshness of the movie dwells in it's very plot, traumas of war from a hitherto unseen and ignored perspective of orphaned children living in refugee camps with no one to look after them, ad somehow caring for themselves, as they undergo a transition from being just children to near adults in order to learn how to survive.
Satellite is such a leader that at one point in the film when he is going to walk through a mine laden field to rescue a small child some of the other children offer to go in his place because they say he is too important for anything to happen to him.
Here he moves to the Iraqi-Turkish border, where life is even tougher.We have a tribe of children and teenagers, led by a teenage incipient megalomaniac called "Satellite" who hacks into TV programs such as CNN on behalf of the village elders just as the American invasion of Iraq is about to start.
Disturbing film regarding Kurdish refugee children in Iraq who, under the leadership of one boy, collect mines from area hillsides in order to trade them for money to get food and other basics.
As the story continues we're introduced to the characters which are exclusively children - and a cast of non professional actors - who stand in a refugee camp between the Iraqi border with Turkey One thing the film does do fairly well is give an international audience what life is like for the Kurds from the period .
Their job is to clear and collect undetonated mines in the fields to sell them in the street market and he installs antennas for the TV sets in village."Turtles Can Fly" is an extremely powerful film by Kurdish-Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi.
The running time is only 95 minutes but it felt more like 95 hours watching the unbearable suffering and incredible resilience of these beautiful kids, growing up much too fast as victims of war in a situation where death is the common denominator and survival all that really matters.
An eye opening, depressing and amazing movie showing the human cost of war, as depicted by the harrowing existence of Kurdish refugees and orphans living near the Iraq-turkey border on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq.This award winning "staged" documentary is a tough go, but the performances from all the children are pretty mind blowing and you can't help but get caught up in their day to day existence.The movie follows one boy known as "Satellite" who seemingly runs the whole show at the camp; wheeling and dealing and organizing everything including the purchase of a satellite dish, weapons for the village elders, and setting up work details for the other children which often includes digging for land mines and comments like this from potential employers; "Most of these kids don't even have hands how can they work for me?" We also learn the past of a young girl, her blind baby and armless brother -who is apparently able to see the future.
The way "Schindler's List" did all of that to me, for me ~ last night came "Turtles Can Fly", a 2004 film about Refugee Camp Kurds living at the Iraq-Turkey Border during the American invasion of Iraq.
Set in a little village at the border, the film follows a group of refugee children who make a living by selling mines in addition to the welfare they 'receive'.
Turtles Can Fly. This movie demonstrates that no matter if there is a war going on, children will always continue to live their life to the fullest.
when i remember the time i was sitting in the movies watching the movie(turtles...)hearing the weepings and seeing unique pictures of a real life ...i wonder how i feel and how i can call myself human as i know some young flowers in a part of the world are living in such a condition being slaughtered and holocaust ed with having the experience of seeing ex-movie of the same director,no one do nothing about it it really bothers me,but i recommend it to people have seen or Will see the film that regard everything in the film as symbols (charactors,sceneries,...)not just a common movie it's distinguishing different..
Watch out for performances from Soran Ebrahim as Satellite, Hiresh Feysal Rahman as Hengov, Avaz Latif as Agrin and little kid who was 3 years old at the time of the movie.
At least for Kurdish people, the US invasion might have ended well -hoping that what we are told in the US is true.Any parent will have an awfully hard time watching this movie, as the level of suffering in the children, and especially in three of them, is so unbearable to watch.
They work on providing a satellite TV for the village, and clear landmines.The acting was excellent, and the film was made beautifully for a movie released in 2004, a year after the U.S. Invasion of Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein.
The director, Bahman Ghobadi, fearlessly takes us into the world of children and refugees caught in a desperate equation of survival in a time of war.
I personally would not recommend the movie, unless you like a very actuate and sad film, of the first Iraq war..
However, I do know the focused of the movie was on Kurdish children during a war.