Turtles never fade away from memory 

Abdul Hafees

It is the first film shot from the war-torn areas of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The Iranian director Bhahman Ghobadi’s ‘Turltes can fly’, after a decade of its release, reminds us some gruesome moments from children’s lives in a land where no one is born without hearing the alarming ring of death. The film brings to the spotlight what lies beyond the terror scenes they do witness, the depth of injury and its scary reflection made all over their lives. 

    A small area in the Kurdistan, the dream state of the Kurds. Here live the turtles. They have to tell a story how the horrific hubbub of cannons and guns snuffed out their dreams young. A 14 years old boy, ‘Satellite’, who is busy with setting the antenna for the village refugees to help them watch the war news. He gains love and affection of the refugees for hiring their kids; most of them are physically disabled. He assigns their works in the minefields and teaches them how to defuse the mines that are kept under the soil of the land of the Kurds by the army of Sadham to kill them. And if they sell the disarmed mines to the Kurdish army in the same condition, they will be paid. ‘Satellite’ hands over this merchandise to the Kurdish army after disarmament operation wisely operated under his guidance by those kids and he gives them back some bucks as their wages.

      ‘Satellite’ incidentally comes to meet Hengov, whose arms are broken in an attack against his family by Sadham’s army.  He has also a sister, Agrin, with a pale face all the time. Her gloomy eyes and melancholic posture take us through her grief-stricken yesterdays. Satellite falls for her. Agrin has a blind toddler in her shoulders, Riga, to whom she gave birth after the Iraqi soldiers left her gang-raped.  The trio, Hengov, Agrin and Riga has reached this refugee camp after they were left alone after an attack over the family. When Hengov takes care of child as his own, Agrin who is fed up with the horror scenes she had gone through in her life, attempts to kill her son and commits suicide many times. Because, she knows that there is no longer a beacon of hope left for her in this world.

     The film that has also won the Crystal Bear and Peace Film award at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival, veritably portrays the panic-stricken moments from some young lives in the war lands. Plucked off from the shades of maternal love one fine day, they are destined to play with bombs without being conscious of what was coming closer every second to end up their lives in a short while.

Photo Credits: http://www.nafeesspeaks.com