This film had a lot to live up to. It is the very first feature film to be filmed after the overthrow of the Saddam regime. On top of that it is directed by the Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi whose previous film I saw was MAROONED IN IRAQ , a film that whilst noble left me with the feeling of close but no cigar. I have to confess from what I've seen of Iranian New Wave I'm not really a fan of the movement but will confess that I've never been a fan of the Italian Neorealist movement that inspired it but TURTLES CAN FLY has had almost universal praise and being set in Iraqi Kurdistan , a place I have visited and a place that treated me as an all conquering hero despite doing absolutely nothing heroic over there I thought I'd owe it to both Kurdistan and myself to watch it
Certainly from the opening scene your expectations are raised and seems radically different from other realist films from the region . A young girl stands on the edge of a cliff and non diagetic music plays , music being played over a scene isn't something associated with cinematic realism . As the story continues we're introduced to the characters which are exclusively children - and a cast of non professional actors - who stand in a refugee camp between the Iraqi border with Turkey
One thing the film does do fairly well is give an international audience what life is like for the Kurds from the period . Where's all the adults you ask ? Buried in mass graves by Arab Ba'athists probably and the vast majority of them were alive and kicking before the earth got bulldozed on top of them. It also touches upon other bits of darker Kurdish rural culture such as blood feuds etc and perhaps best of all lives up to the Kurdish mantra that "The only friends we (The Kurds) have are the mountains" . However I did find it all rather uninvolving which is surprising given the topic . Possibly it might all be down to the fact that the last film I saw was CRIMSON GOLD which is an exceptional film from the Iranian New Wave
Certainly from the opening scene your expectations are raised and seems radically different from other realist films from the region . A young girl stands on the edge of a cliff and non diagetic music plays , music being played over a scene isn't something associated with cinematic realism . As the story continues we're introduced to the characters which are exclusively children - and a cast of non professional actors - who stand in a refugee camp between the Iraqi border with Turkey
One thing the film does do fairly well is give an international audience what life is like for the Kurds from the period . Where's all the adults you ask ? Buried in mass graves by Arab Ba'athists probably and the vast majority of them were alive and kicking before the earth got bulldozed on top of them. It also touches upon other bits of darker Kurdish rural culture such as blood feuds etc and perhaps best of all lives up to the Kurdish mantra that "The only friends we (The Kurds) have are the mountains" . However I did find it all rather uninvolving which is surprising given the topic . Possibly it might all be down to the fact that the last film I saw was CRIMSON GOLD which is an exceptional film from the Iranian New Wave