Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly is the first post-Saddam film from Iraq. This will undoubtedly ensure plenty of backslapping and ‘well done old chap’ coverage for Bahman Ghobadi, the director previously best known for A Time For Drunken Horses. That’s almost a shame.
Certainly, the film’s engagement with ordinary Iraqi life is fascinating and worthy and heartbreaking. Who could fail to be moved by the spectacle of orphaned, malnourished children dismantling mines for a living in Kurdistan? (Reader, I wept like a malfunctioning sprinkler.) And who, indeed, could claim to have seen a single real depiction of Iraqi life in the past year besides those captured by this remarkable film?
Such matters are far from trivial, of course, but it still makes Turtles Can Fly sound like earnest, self-improving fare, ideally suited for a date with a Socialist-Worker (after leafleting, obviously). Truth is, that doesn’t do the film nearly enough justice. A good deal more raucous than neighbouring Iranian offerings, Turtles has a playful, almost anarchic sensibility mediated through irrepressible teen-hero, Satellite (Ebrahim). A self-appointed king of the lost boys who organises the collection of mines, installs dishes and peppers his speech with English phrases, his perspective, for all the sadness and Truffautisms on display, lends the film an adventurous feel – a sort of Five Get Stuck In No Man’s Land or a benevolent Lord Of The Flies.
That such adventures take place on densely mined lands and frequently involve loss of limbs never seems to bother him and the tearaway kids he leads. It ought to be considerably more troubling for those who’ve done nothing about the Kurdish plight. That would be everybody, then.

Running Time 97mins. Cert IFI Members. Opens March 18th.