Excellent adaptation.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I never seen any Kurdish movie better than this but a bit difficult understanding

Turtles Can Fly, a movie that I was very crossed with. The movie is set in a small Kurdish village in Iraq. A young man is able to capitalize on the war and sell new/used American land mines. While doing this he encounters some of the young children who fell victim to Saddam Hussein's gas experiments. Satellite- the young capitalist- finds a boy with no arms and his abused sister, and her son walking into the village. The troubled little girl wants to rid her on her baby, but weirdly the brother wants to keep him. The movie is very dark in the fact that the young girl will eventually kill herself, and the armless boy becomes very sad about it. The most satisfying part of the film was the insertion of the American forces. It made me feel sane and gave me hope that just maybe the people in the small village would be saved. I personally would not recommend the movie, unless you like a very actuate and sad film, of the first Iraq war.

An extraordinary movie. This collaboration between Iran and Iraq for me is about the human spirit. But not in a fist in the air way. It is about how humans keep going, no matter what hand they are dealt, but also about how sometimes it is just too much to go on. The film is set as it says in the beginning in " Kurdistan , Iraq : Turkish Border — a few weeks before the U.S. Iraq war." The main characters are children. all of who whom give performances so natural, that it does them a disservice to cal them performances. They don't act. They ARE. Although reading the artcle linked to below. it is clear that much of this is down to the masterful direction of Bahman Ghobadi Many of the children, are seen to have lost limbs, and in the case of one small child, his sight. But the director never asks you too feel pity for them. Is it a bleak movie, an uplifting movie, It's both. It's also pretty funny. There is one scene,which I thought the movie could have done without. It is the most suspenseful scene in the movie, where the lead character tries to save another character. I just found it a little out of place. But I'll forgive it. NOTE. I was wondering if these children were actors. It seems not. See the article at http://homemcr.org/film/turtles-can-fly/ which explains that they were relieving their own experiences. Although obviously not in all cases.

Great literature, great film challenges us, provokes us, pulls on our heart, stays in our minds, and haunts us to at least be aware of our world, and those "other" people living in it. The way "Schindler's List" did all of that to me, for me ~ last night came "Turtles Can Fly", a 2004 film about Refugee Camp Kurds living at the Iraq-Turkey Border during the American invasion of Iraq. As the much more eloquent writers here on IMDb have shared, this is not a political movie making statements about America, Turkey, or Iraq...it is a view through children's eyes, living mid-hope, mid-despair. I wanted to look away....and could not. Like the Pulitzer Award-Winning Novel, "Andersonville" by MacKinlay Kantor, which I had to put down at various points, I was held prisoner for 98 minutes by these child actors. When I read afterward that these were real refugee camp children, led in this film by the talented director, I was even more amazed. 16 International Film Critic Awards...one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. Cannot recommend it to anyone who is not willing to be opened up....like a coconut. I say that with a smirk, but also a very deep ache...