Turtles an Oscar Oversight

If you allow that we went into Iraq too late, too clumsily, and for all of the wrong reasons...

That still doesn't detract from the fact that Saddam Hussein is responsible for some terrible atrocities. I remember the first time I saw a photograph from Saddam's 1988 "campaign" against Kurdish Iraqis. It looks a little like this: a baby, maybe 6 or 7 seven months old, wrapped tightly in a pretty blanket. Mouth frozen open, head thrust back. And the body of his/her mother extended atop. As residents in Kurdistan, they'd been victims of poison gas attacks orchestrated by Saddam's regime.

But that was one of the more "peaceful" deaths afforded to this ethnic minority during the 1980s. In many instances villages were raided, civilians were slaughtered, and the children left standing were generally orphaned.

And that's what Turtles Can Fly (2005) is about. Kurdish children displaced by Saddam's army (though if we are to believe the chronology, much of the inciting action took place in the late 1990s); most of them without parents and many, even, without aunts, uncles or even grandparents. They're alone at a refugee camp near the Turkish border, and so build a network wherein they look after each other. The oldest of these kids, Satellite (Soran Ebrahim), is essentially the leader of the pack.

He's bossy, a braggart and generally quite annoying for the viewing audience. But the younger kids look up to him and, when you get right down to it, he genuinely cares for them and even risks his life, on more than one occasion, to save one of "his kids."

You can't help but like Satellite as a result. Even as he insults the armless boy or lies to the village elders... even as he shouts for the little kids to help him build bunkers, and barters for weaponry. You see all of this and remember that he, himself, is just a boy in his early teens.

And because this movie focuses on Kurds in Iraq, I appreciated being able to see the American invasion through their eyes. I mean, when you consider the sort of torture (both literal and metaphorical) the Kurds had been subjected to because of Saddam, wouldn't the Kurds in Iraq thus anticipate the arrival of American forces?

Iranian writer/director Bahman Ghobadi provides a subtle answer to this delicate question. Americans are neither demonized nor glorified in Turtle (this movie isn't about them, remember... it's about these children). And it's true that many Kurds were so eager to see Saddam removed from power that, yes, they were excited to see the American tanks come
rolling in.

But that excitement was tempered by a much harsher reality: there were still American-made mines buried by the hundreds (thousands) around the Iraqi countryside... all remnants from previous conflicts. And these mines were often "discovered" by Kurdish children. So what does this "welcome" invasion mean for them?

You sort of get a sense that these people are the victims of dictators and "peace keeping" forces alike. They're in the middle of a conflict that is exacerbated, rather than mollified, by a seemingly endless cycle of wars.

There's also a fairy tale subplot to this story, as rumors circulate about a boy who can see the future. But this subplot is so beautifully woven into the main story line that it actually becomes believable. Add to that this film is oftentimes charming - even comical - and you can't help but think that a film about children should be for children.

But there's much more to this story, and Turtles Can Fly emerges instead as a message for the rest of the world.