TURTLES CAN FLY

TURTLES CAN FLY (2005)

RATING-PG-13 For violence, disturbing images and mature thematic material, all involving children

AWARDS-14 wins and 3 nominations at many prestigous film festivals.

STARRING-Kurdish Iraqi children, none of whom had acting experience.

STORY- TURTLES CAN FLY is not a feel good movie. It's a movie about children and about war. It takes place on the Iraqi-Turkish border right before the start of our Iraq war. The children are mostly orphaned and many maimed from the attacks on the Kurds by Saddam Hussein. The film centers around 'Satellite', a 13 year Kurdish boy, so named because of his ability to install satellite dishes and translate news of the pending US invasion. Satellite is a natural leader and controls teams of children who earn a living by clearing fields of land mines and selling them to the UN. The missing hands and feet among the children are also hazards of the trade. It even shows one boy with no arms disarming a mine using his teeth. The tensions and excitement mount in this village of mostly tents and a huge dump of rusted out used weapons as the time for the war to begin draws closer. Into the village wander another 13 year old boy with no arms and a younger sister with an illegitimate child. The girl is very pretty and obviously very troubled (you learn the tragedy she and her brother lived through in a flashback scene). The brother has had visions since losing his arms and is able to predict the future, something Satellite wants to exploit. While many of the children are cute and great on the screen (none were actors before the film) and there are some very funny scenes, it is not an easy film to watch. Watching 6 & 7 year olds without parents dismantle bombs for a living is not the way children should grow up. They are old way beyond their years. The ending is not happy, in fact, some might say shocking, except for knowing the tragedy many of them have already endured. This is not a film about the politics of war but the results of war (specifically Saddam's ethnic cleansing of the Kurds) on children. How many other parts of the world could this same story be reproduced. Could be very appropriate for mature teens but you might want to watch it first. The violence is not graphic as the film builds up to the violence and then cuts away and leaves it to your imagination. A fascinating story of a tragic slice of life in the Middle East. -Lu G. for Lu's Reviews. 9/10/2007.

LINKS- IMBD, TRAILER, AMAZON