Turtles Can Fly

The Film, "Turtles Can Fly," by Bahman Ghobadi, is set in a refugee camp on the border of Turkey and Iraq and involves mainly children as characters. The protagonist in the movie is an older boy named Soran, also known as Satellite, who goes around the village installing satellites and antennas for the people, so the villagers can know more about the war. Satellite's other roles in the village is to make deals with other people to sell the mines and to watch over the children in the village, who deactivate mines in the field in order survive and receive income. You notice that many of the children has lost their arms, legs, homes, and do not even have family members, such as Hengov, who is known to foretell the future and travels with her sister, Agrin, and her so called son, Riga, who is blind and must be tied down because he sleepwalks. Throughout the movie, Satellite becomes attracted to Agrin and gives her everything he can, such as trying to catch the "red fish" for her and giving her and Riga gasmasks, but Agrin's harsh past, when Saddam's soldiers raped her, scarred her forever and she can bear to live. In the end, not able to withstand the horrid memories, she ends up drowning her son and jumping off a cliff in order to leave the pain.

A scene that I thought was significant is when Satellite and his children go into the city to the black market as Satellite bargains to buy guns to prepare for the war. These scenes are symbols of globalization because the village and the people, while in poverty, are obtaining the worldly objects and technology such as guns and weapons in order to defend themselves . Another scene that i thought was important was when Hengov, the armless boy, removes a landmine with his teeth. The director takes a close shot at this scene because he wants the audience to be anxious and nervous and see the risk Hengov is taking, showing us that the mine could explode anytime. Also, this scene shows the resilience of the children in the village. While many of the children lost their arms, hands, and legs, they still brave into the minefields to survive and earn money.