Turtles Can Fly/Oldboy

And A Child Shall Lead Them...
by Chris Dashiell

Somewhere, the unimaginable is simply an everyday reality. Nothing can bring this home more directly than a film, if it is made with an eye for the truth rather than an argument. Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi has done just that in Turtles Can Fly , the first major narrative film to be shot in post-Saddam Iraq .

We see the end of the story first -- a girl, who looks to be no older than 14, approaches a cliff. She takes her slippers off, and then, after standing for a moment, swaying in the wind -- jumps over the edge. This wordless tragedy informs every moment of what we are shown from then on.

In a remote village on the Iraqi-Turkish border, a 13-year-old named Soran (Soran Ebrahim) helps direct the installation of a series of huge TV antennae on a hill. It is 2002, and war with America is impending. The elders want to know what is happening, so that they can prepare. Soran's nickname is "Satellite." He insists that only satellite dishes will do the trick, and finally convinces the chief elder to let him try to get one for the village.

Satellite is a natural leader -- a combination merchant, trickster, and self-appointed dictator of all the children in the hamlet, many of them orphaned refugees who have lost limbs from the numerous land mines in the area. He supervises the kids as they dig up and dismantle these mines in order to sell them on the underground arms market for food and other necessaries. He has assumed his role in the absence of adult males under sixty -- the village and its adjoining camp of refugee tents is comprised mainly of old people and children -- and his bossiness can be both obnoxious and strangely endearing.

In the midst of his non-stop wheeling and dealing, he becomes interested in a girl who has recently arrived at a nearby camp, in the company of her armless brother, who is rumored to be clairvoyant, and a toddler boy. Satellite argues with the armless boy, who knocks him down by butting him with his head, but tries to do favors for the girl, who regards him warily. This little child-family holds secrets that reflect the irreversible horrors of war. In the meantime, we witness the incredible power of childhood endurance. Whatever his young characters suffer, Ghobadi is in touch with the higher faculties in them, including humor, that help them survive.

There are more than a few well-known directors who could take lessons from Bahman Ghobadi on how to portray life in extreme conditions, and especially on what to avoid in the matter of technique. There are plenty of opportunities to sentimentalize the children, highlighting lovable qualities with which audiences could supposedly identify. Ghobadi doesn't do that. The non-professional performers are as unaffected, and thus as natural, as can be. He refrains from emphasizing dramatic moments with editing, dialogue, or music. We are shown the action crisply and concisely, and then we move on to the next action. He also (and this is perhaps the most difficult feat) sidesteps the tonal attitude of what I call "miserablism," the unrelieved depiction of suffering depicted as if in accusation of the viewer. Instead, everything is ordinary and matter-of-fact. The daily suffering of child refugees is shown as a regular aspect of life in this place, at this time. And this ordinariness is more effective than a thousand polemics.

The result is a work of art that is sensitive, insightful, and devastatingly honest. The gawky-looking Ebrahim, wearing thick eyeglasses, turns in a memorable performance of cocky self-assurance tinged with budding teenage anxiety. Most of the supporting cast of child actors (actual Kurdish kids) are wonderful, particularly Satellite's two assistants, one of whom is a cripple who can twist his shattered leg in disturbing ways, and the other a little guy who shouts in response to questions while holding back tears. Ghobadi has achieved the miraculous -- a film about war's ravages on kids that is thoroughly mature in approach and rigorous in style, an unforgettable, haunting piece of film poetry.

Violence for its own sake is one of the curses of modern cinema. But rather than decrying it as an influence on society, I see it as a symptom of our already existing malaise.

Chan-wook Park 's Oldboy doesn't completely escape this verdict. A mystery thriller this stylized wouldn't employ such brutal and graphic violence if it weren't trying for effect the same way an average Hollywood action or slasher flick does. But the story has a core of gravitas that saves it from being dismissed so easily.

Min-sik Choi plays an apparently ordinary guy who gets kidnapped by an unknown enemy and confined to a faux hotel room for fifteen years, with food shoved in through a little door and only a TV for company. Then, as suddenly as he was kidnapped, he is released -- drugged and then dropped off in the outside world with no clue as to who ruined his life, or why. He then embarks on a quest for revenge that becomes a harrowing game of cat-and-mouse, with his mysterious enemy playing the part of the cat.

The plot mechanics are convoluted indeed, but the viewer expecting a conventional suspense film will be in for a shock. The film is interested in the chemistry of extreme emotion: grief, trauma, humiliation, rage, and burning regret. The protagonist has lost his sense of connection to other people, and when an encounter with a girl (Hye-jeong Kang) reawakens his capacity for love and tenderness, this conflicts with his maniacal impulse towards retribution -- the inner struggle mirroring the outer.

Throughout the film, the demands of the crime genre overwhelm the story's nascent meanings. But the director's style is smooth and seductive, with a touch of surrealism that hooks you and keeps you guessing. Smartly paced and well-acted, Oldboy may be more smoke than fire, but the feelings it evokes, unlike shallow actioneers like Kill Bill , are powerful enough to pierce your heart -- and fray your nerves.