Study Guides: Turtles Can Fly

Bahman Ghobadi (2004; 98 minutes)

  • Director and Screenwriter: Bahman Ghobadi
  • Cinematographer: Shahriar Assadi
  • Editors: Mustafa Kherqepush and Haydeh Safi-Yari

Film Abstract (by A.O. Scott of the New York Times)

"Adults are fairly peripheral in the world of Turtles Can Fly, which is set in a mountainside village in Iraq that incorporates a swelling refugee camp. The time is early 2003, and the villagers wait, with a mixture of hope and trepidation, for the Second Gulf War to begin, and try to find news of its arrival....The hardships these children have faced are horrifying, and Mr. Ghobadi neither sweetens nor sensationalizes them, which makes Turtles Can Fly all the more painful to watch. It is a heartbreaking film, and cruelty sometimes seems to be not only its subject but its method. Like the child on a high cliff that is one of its recurring images, the film walks up to the edge of hopelessness and pauses there, waiting to see what happens next."

Major Characters (from IMDB)

  • Soran Ebrahim .... Satellite
  • Avaz Latif .... Agrin
  • Saddam Hossein Feysal .... Pashow
  • Hiresh Feysal Rahman .... Hengov
  • Abdol Rahman Karim .... Riga
  • Ajil Zibari .... Shirkooh

Historical Background

In 1999, the Washington Post posted a short background article on the Kurdish people. In 1991, the Human Rights Watch estimated their numbers between 20 and 25 million. Despite their long history as an imagined community, there has never been a Kurdish state; the Kurds live in a region divided among Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, and Syria. Kurdish culture and history are hotly disputed by partisans in all of these countries.

The film's family of three--the girl Agrin, the boy Hengov, and the child Riga--are refugees from the Kurdish village of Halabja. This village, just inside the Iraqi border, supported Iran during the 1980-88 war. Near the war's end, Saddam Hussein bombed and gassed Halabja's inhabitants; roughly 5000 were killed and many continue to suffer from illnesses related to the gas attacks.

Discussion Questions

  1. In what ways is Turtles Can Fly unusual for a war film?
  2. What are the defining characteristics of its three major characters?
  3. What effect does the focus on children have on the film's depiction of contemporary events?

 

Major Characters (images to come)

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