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DVD Turtles Can Fly
Too few films capture war from the point of view of the children who endure it--perhaps because it's awful to contemplate. But Turtles Can Fly manages to be both heartbreaking and galvanizing in its depiction of young Iraqis waiting for the U.S. Army to roll over their village on the border of Turkey. A boy called Satellite (Soran Ebrahim), so called because he knows how to hook up a satellite dish, divides his time turning himself into a big operator--he commands a small army of children who search the fields for land mines they can sell to the U.N.--and wooing a pretty but haunted girl named Agrin (Avaz Latif) whose brother has no arms but can see the future. Satellite's mixture of scheming and genuine compassion drives the movie forward; it's impossible not to become engrossed in his courage and ambition, even as the world crumbles around him. Since the U.S. has linked its fate with that troubled country, learning a little about the Iraqi people would be good for everyone involved; fortunately, Turtles Can Fly is more than just an educational opportunity. Rich humor helps balance the harrowing circumstances, making the movie a riveting experience. --Bret Fetzer
Children are the most vulnerable victims of war, and the Kurdish film "Turtles Can Fly" illustrates this perfectly. In the film, a remote Kurdish village in Northern Iraq awaits news of the U.S. invasion. Completely cut off from any media source, the village elders arrange for the purchase of a satellite dish so they can watch news of the invasion on a tiny salvaged television.
The story focuses on the village's raggle-taggle band of orphans who live outside of the village in tents and partially demolished military equipment. The tenacious orphan Satellite (Soran Ebrahim) commands a certain respect from the village elders for his technological skills, and the other orphans accept Satellite as their leader. One day three new children drift into the village--Hengov (Hiresh Feysal Rahman) an armless boy, his sister, Agrin (Avaz Latif) and a small blind toddler. Arvin's disturbed memories explain her emotional vacuity, and Hengov's protective instincts and insistence on establishing a family structure are tragic.
Director Bahman Ghobadi clearly loves children, and this is illustrated by showing the optimism and joy that some of the children still manage to possess--in spite of all the terrible things they continue to experience. The orphans in the film have lost everything--their homes, their families, and in some cases--parts of their bodies. In a harsh terrain with no social support, the orphans drift--some may survive to adulthood, and some may not. Even though Iraq isn't at war when the film begins, all these children know is war, death, and deprivation. Their shelter is a graveyard of military equipment, and even their food is purchased by retrieving and selling mines.
"Turtles Can Fly" is neither specifically pro or con the Iraq war--the characters, after all, have suffered great hardships under Saddam Hussein's rule, but somehow one feels that another war--rather than liberate these young victims--will only result in even more deprivations and violence. Clearly Hengov doesn't discriminate between sides when remembering the destruction planes, soldiers and bombs bring. The result is the same no matter who does the killing. Ultimately, this beautiful, poetic film delivers a strong anti-war message through the daily lives of these children. They ask so for so little--a family, food, shelter, and love--and they are destined to receive none of these things. This is a splendid, unforgettable film--in Kurdish with English subtitles--displacedhuman
A haunting tale of war, loss, and society's marginalized
"Turtles can Fly" is a drama set in Kurdistan (on the Turkey-Iraq border) shortly before the Americans invade Iraq in 2003. Satellite is the ringleader of the refugee camp's hoards of orphaned children, who earn a meager living picking live landmines out of fields. Many are missing hands, arms, or legs. At the beginning of the film, the town's villagers are trying to install ancient antennas to catch word of when the war will begin, but Satellite rightly predicts that only a satellite dish will work for picking up foreign channels. Satellite's sidekick Pashow has lost a leg to the mines, and hobbles frantically behind Satellite, trying to keep up as he barks orders to assign his "workers" to new mine fields. The children sell the mines to arms dealers, who sell them to the UN.
We soon meet Agrin and Hengov, brother and sister, who are displaced and live in the refugee camp. Their parents were murdered by the Iraqi army, and tagging along with them is their little brother Riga, who, although blind, is a very intelligent, sensitive toddler. Hengov has lost both arms to a mine, and works alone, not talking to the other village and refugee children. It is said that he has the ability to predict the future. His beautiful, haunted, suicidal sister begrudgingly cares for Riga, who she lets wander away at night. Satellite is attracted to Agrin, attempting to impress her by carrying water for her, diving into a haunted pond to look for red fish, and telling her that he's been looking for a girl like her all his life, but she just walks away, back to the misery of her tent and her lot in life.
The war eventually reaches the town, and we see American troops rumbling through, but more and more tragedy occurs to the most defenseless: the children, living in mud-soaked, filthy camps, who spend their days picking through shell casings and unexploded land mines.
The ending is stark and powerful, and director Ghobadi blends mysticism with gritty realism, the young cast all non-professional actors. His distrust of the West is portrayed in scenes that show "forbidden channels" on the satellite, music videos and such from Germany, and the inaccurate reporting from CNN. When the village elders try to force Satellite to translate, he just says "they're saying it will rain tomorrow," but later in the film, we find that he does know a bit of English and inadvertently teaches it to the other children.
This is a film full of disturbing images: violence, rape, maiming and suicide of children, so sensitive viewers beware. It is slow to start off, but is an ultimately rewarding journey of the horrors of war and the fate of the marginalized, orphaned children that war produces.
Turtles Can Fly an extraordinary film, if only...
Turtles Can Fly is a film that could be described in a number of ways; extraorindary, insightful, a truly remarkable film. And it really is. I don't think I've ever seen a film with so much clarity of depth into the lives of Kurdish refugees, nestled in the hills outside Baghdad weeks before the war and leading up to it. The story of these orphaned children's lives as they risk life and limb to collect landmines in trade for weapons, and a satellite system for village elders, eager to hear of news of the oncoming war.
Unfortunately, my appreciation of the film is somewhat diminished. Yes, it's an amazing film. I'm not denying that. But my reaction to the film was of utter hopelessness and misery. This film made me feel miserable, not just for Satellite, Agrin, and the other characters. My response to it was misery. Watching Agrin attempt numerous times to kill herself or the young, orphaned child she entrusted to her care filled me with the same kind of feeling seeing Lord of the Flies for the first time did. I kept asking myself, where are the parents? The answer is all to obvious, and yet, the apocaplyptic atmosphere this movie imparts is unshakable. It's a very affecting film. It gets to you. I'd lavish Turtles Can Fly with more praise, but inwardly, it made me feel absolutely miserable. It's a drama in the most human sense, brutal, and honest.
Nobody Knows, an extraordinary film from Japanese director Kore-Eda Hirokazu, is a heartbreaking and touching story about how selfish a single mother can be to her four children, and how resilient children can be. Kicked out of several apartments for her large brood, Keiko (Japanese pop star You) sneaks them in to a new one (two inside the suitcases) and goes over the house rules: No loud noises. They must stay hidden inside the apartment all day, every day. Only Akira, the oldest, leaves to do grocery shopping while she works. He also makes dinner while Keiko goes out on dates (implying to her children that she's looking for a rich husband so that they can all live in a big house together).
Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Don Cheadle - Sophie Okonedo Director(s): Terry George DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The beauty of the South American landscape and of Gael Garcia Bernal (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Bad Education) gives The Motorcycle Diaries a charisma that is decidedly apolitical. But this portrait of the young Che Guevara (later to become a militant revolutionary) is half buddy-movie, half social commentary--and while that may seem an unholy hybrid, under the guidance of Brazillian director Walter Salles (Central Station) the movie is quietly passionate. Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna, a lusty and engaging actor) set off from Buenos Aires, hoping to circumnavigate the continent on a leaky motorcycle. They end up travelling more by foot, hitchhiking, and raft, but their experience of the land and the people affects them profoundly. No... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Walter Salles DVD Release Date: Released the 15 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The brilliant writer-director Mike Leigh (Topsy-Turvy, Secrets and Lies, Naked) has crafted an utterly compelling movie about one of the most controversial of topics. An irrepressibly hopeful housecleaner in 1950s London named Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton, Antonia and Jane, Shakespeare in Love) mothers everyone around her, from her own family to helpless shut-ins and lonely men living in tiny, isolated apartments. None of these people know that Vera also helps young women get rid of unwanted pregnancies, until the police appear and tear her world apart. Vera Drake isn't just an inspired character portrait; through simple and straightforward scenes, the movie weaves a quiet but mesmerizing portrait of how people--both wealthy and poor--cope with... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Imelda Staunton - Heather Craney Director(s): Mike Leigh DVD Release Date: Released the 29 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The riveting subject of Downfall is nothing less than the disintegration of Adolf Hitler in mind, body, and soul. A 2005 Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, this German historical drama stars Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire) as Hitler, whose psychic meltdown is depicted in sobering detail, suggesting a fallen, pathetic dictator on the verge on insanity, resorting to suicide (along with Eva Braun and Joseph and Magda Goebbels) as his Nazi empire burns amidst chaos in mid-1945. While staging most of the film in the claustrophobic bunker where Hitler spent his final days, director Oliver Hirschbiegel (Das Experiment) dares to show the gentler human side of der Fuehrer, as opposed to the pure embodiment of evil so familiar from many other Nazi-era... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Oliver Hirschbiegel DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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