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Turtles Can Fly | 
 enlarge | Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Actors: Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif, Saddam Hossein Feysal, Hiresh Feysal Rahman, Abdol Rahman Karim
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $4.23
You Save: $15.75 (79%)
New (43) Used (26) from $4.18
Avg. Customer Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 11924
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Subtitled), Kurdish (Original Language)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 97
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 1008866
ISBN: 0792867416
UPC: 027616928559
EAN: 9780792867418
ASIN: B000A7LR82
Theatrical Release Date: 2004
Release Date: September 20, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ******BRAND NEW****** THE SOURCE FOR RARE MEDIA, THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS SATISFIED, AND OVER 250 000 ITEMS IN STOCK, BUY FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE, ESTABLISHED SINCE 1998 - INETVIDEO ~~~
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Too few films capture war from the point of view of the children who endure it--perhaps because it's awful to contemplate. But Turtles Can Fly manages to be both heartbreaking and galvanizing in its depiction of young Iraqis waiting for the U.S. Army to roll over their village on the border of Turkey. A boy called Satellite (Soran Ebrahim), so called because he knows how to hook up a satellite dish, divides his time turning himself into a big operator--he commands a small army of children who search the fields for land mines they can sell to the U.N.--and wooing a pretty but haunted girl named Agrin (Avaz Latif) whose brother has no arms but can see the future. Satellite's mixture of scheming and genuine compassion drives the movie forward; it's impossible not to become engrossed in his courage and ambition, even as the world crumbles around him. Since the U.S. has linked its fate with that troubled country, learning a little about the Iraqi people would be good for everyone involved; fortunately, Turtles Can Fly is more than just an educational opportunity. Rich humor helps balance the harrowing circumstances, making the movie a riveting experience. --Bret Fetzer
Description
From acclaimed director Bahman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses) comes the first film shot in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Heart-wrenching as well as spirit-raising (The Hollywood Reporter), Turtles Can Fly mixes humor and tragedy to startling effect, resulting in a very timely masterpiece (TV Guide) about children struggling to survive in an endless war zone. On the Iraqi-Turkish border, enterprising 13-year-old 'satellite (Soran Ebrahim) is the de facto leader of a Kurdish village, thanks to his ability to install satellite dishes and translate news of the pending US invasion. Organizing fellow orphans into landmine-collection teams so that they can eke out a living, heis all business until the arrival of a clairvoyant boy and his quiet, beautiful sister.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 39 more reviews...
 Humanity Without boundaries May 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Awesome movie. Incredible 'humaness' in the face of menacing forces. Human forces nurtured from kids to adulthood. I recommend this movie and aAli Soua about street kids in Moroccco. My 8 year also enjoyed this movie immesenly, few months after viewing it she stills once in awhile talks about it... particularly about the little girl... Powerful
Yes, even Turtles Can Fly April 21, 2008
The title TURTLES CAN FLY is actually a metaphor for the film. They, the children (and presumably the Kurdish people), are like the turtle, struggling to navigate and rise above a sea of adversities, namely their surroundings and circumstances. In this case, they are refugees on the Turkish-Iraqi border eking out a living to gather and sell scrap military equipment, namely landmines.
While watching Bahman Ghobad's film TURTLES CAN FLY I kept thinking how gutsy and enterprising the children were amidst their desperate condition. Their light humour and camaraderie gave me the impression they would prevail amidst their trials and tribulations, although it would not be an easy task.
Throughout the film you feel the Kurdish people's nomadic existence. In particular, you feel Agrin's (Avaz Latif) lost innocence from a gang rape by Iraqi soldiers in Halabche, her antipathy for the child born of this crime and her futility to care for her blind child in a culture that has perhaps cast her out. You feel Henkov's (Hiresh Feysal Rahman) nobility to hold the family together, to protect his sister's honour and the life of the child, even though he is physically handicapped. You feel Satellite's (Soran Ebrahim) love for and loss of Agrin and the child, as well as his own uncertainty of the future at the end of the film.
Surprising, there are no heroes in this film: not the children, not the village elders, not the black-marketers, not the American army. The story unfolds as a documentary, revealing events as they more or less happen, while weaving a subtle moral tale within it.
Like the neorealist director Roberto Rossellini's post-WWII film Germany Year Zero (1947), TURTLES CAN FLY explores how warmongers destroy and corrupt lives; how humanity struggles in the aftermath of war and displacement; and how some die as a result, yet how humanity as a whole rises to the challenge though it is immensely difficult.
Extremely powerful film April 5, 2008
"I didn't watch this because it won all those awards. I watched it because Michael LaRocca recommended it."
These are words you'll never hear. And yet, I do have to throw my voice into this chorus and say it's humorous and tragic, for a powerfully moving film that you won't forget. I'm putting it over there on that little shelf of DVDs that I call "keepers."
So. . .shame on me February 9, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
So here is this movie, set in Iraq shortly before the arrival of American troops. . .And there was misery in the country.
Leaflets drop from the helicopters of the liberating U.S Army. "We are here to take away your sorrows," the leaflets proclaim. "We are the best in the world." And. . .there still is misery in the country.
So allow me, a presently unproud American who has served his country, to question why "we are the best in the world"? Does our might make us so, our arrogance, our ignorance, our excess, our vanity? What god-awful temerity allows us to make this God-like claim to vanquish sorrow?
So allow me, also, this introspection: I haven't the dedication, the loyalty, the love, the compassion of any one of the orphaned Iraqi children pictured in this movie. Shame on me. May the spirit of the doomed children in this movie invade me. Let them liberate me!
This is not a political film; it is humanitarian act from the Iranian and Iraqi filmmakers to us. They are kin to Langston Hughes, the American poet who wished and wrote: "Let America be America again."
Incredible movie. Instant classic! January 28, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
A stunner of a film. Original, straightforward, effective. Does not indulge itself or the situation. Brillant, engaged storytelling.
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