TURTLES CAN FLYA film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2

TURTLES CAN FLY (LAKPOSHTHA HÂM PARVAZ MIKONAND), a joint Iran-Iraq production, is a pretty pointless and shamelessly manipulative story about kids living in a remote Kurdish refugee camp. Although the Kurds were the most oppressed people during Saddam Hussein's long and brutal regime, the movie blames most of these Kurdish kids' miseries on what is said to be American mines.

This depressing movie's saddest scene is a child endangerment episode in which one boy walks slowly through a mine field in order to save another one. We know the mine will explode, but director Bahman Ghobadi drags it out for as long as he can in order jerk all of the tears possible from the audience.

The director appears to assume that using untrained child actors with winning smiles is all that it takes to create realism, but I never bought any of it. One boy, the leader of the pack, is nicknamed Satellite for his ability to get antennas and satellite dishes for the villagers to receive the news of the war. Another lad is called the "Armless Boy" by his friends. In one hard to believe incident, we watch as people gather around him watching him diffuse mines with his mouth. No one seems worried that his lack of dexterity might cause them all to be blown to smithereens. The Armless Boy is also a sage whose predictions always come true.

The thin story makes an hour and a half feel like three. When I left, I felt like I had endured a long and pointless sermon by a preacher who could never figure out what he wanted to say.

TURTLES CAN FLY runs 1:38. The film is in Kurdish with English subtitles. It is not rated but would be R for war violence and would be acceptable for teenagers.

The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 15, 2005. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.

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Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com

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