Bahman Ghobadi follows his acclaimed A time for drunken horses and Marooned in Iraq with an unmissable new feature, winner of the main award at the San Sebastián Film Festival and Iran's official Oscar submission for best foreign-language film.
As the world's news networks announced the end of the war in Iraq, Bahman Ghobadi began filming his story of the precariousness of life in a refugee camp on the Iran-Iraq border. Set in 2003 just prior to the USA-led invasion, Turtles can fly (Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand) shows the refugees' obsession with acquiring a satellite dish to keep abreast of America's plans. Thirteen-year-old Satellite (Soran Ebrahim), the accepted leader of the kids in the camp, finally acquires the equipment they need by trading in the land mines the children have cleared from the area. On meeting Henkov (Hiresh Feysal Rahman), a boy from a neighbouring village and a landmine victim himself, Satellite discovers Henkov's prophetic powers, which turn out to be more reliable than 21st century technology.
Capturing the intimacies of everyday life, replete with stoicism and humour, what strikes most about Turtles can fly (Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand) is the sheer mundaneity of the horrific actuality of the refugees' lives. Ghobadi witnessed at first hand, and here reveals, the mined lands, the maimed children, the ever-worsening security situation. Remarkably, from this he has fashioned a film which celebrates the survival of the human spirit, beautiful and surprisingly uplifting.
Special Agent Matti
Ah, the joys of war. Shooting strangers, raping children, planting mines, seeking genocide, burning homes... what more could a dictator want from a war?
And then there's Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, Turtles can fly is a harsh look at life as a Kurdish refugee war-orphan. The location is a small valley filled with tents, rocks, mud and mines. The characters are lost souls struggling through each day. The actors are not acting at all but living fiction through the pain of reality. The performances are raw wounds cut directly into the celluloid. The script is a little stilted and drawn-out but it's no trouble to sit through the extra seven minutes in which this results.
Turtles can fly (Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand) is hard to watch - you'll be glad that you're relaxed and comfortable in white Australia - but it's worth the effort.
M (Adult themes, low level violence)
97 minutes (1:37 hours)
Film: 18 August 2005 - Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney