Turtles Can Fly

Bahman Ghobadis’s 2004 film Turtles Can Fly is an emotional narrative of Kurdish refugee children in Iraq just before the American invasion. Despite the setting of a globally hostile environment, the film captures the viewer into the stories of the children and the adversities that they face. Their situations display unfortunate aspects of life that such young and innocent children shouldn’t have to endure, such as trading landmines for guns and thoughts of suicide.
The cinematography in Turtles Can Fly is very strong seeming more technically accomplished than other modern films from the region. The camera work, colors, frames, and edges all give the film a strong composition, and this interpretation provides a clearer picture of the bleak situation in which the children are involved. Also, Ghobadi makes a developed use of mise-en-scene such as use of camera angle to show height in the cliff scenes.
Turtles Can Fly offers a moving film that brings to light the often overlooked victims of war. These children’s fights in a world of confusion and turmoil display the desperation for a decent experience of humanity. One scene in the film that displays the point of desperation in which these people have arrived is when a child is yelling for everyone to get off of the truck and another child mentions to him,” Not all of them are our boys,” and he then replies “That doesn’t matter.” This scene is an example of the desperation and confusion for which the film is trying to make evident of the people who actually were victims of the Iraq war and other similar Middle Eastern conflicts.
-Gregory Brent Thomas