Turtles Can Fly- Molly McLaughlin

In the film "Turtles Can Fly", we experience a whole new view point on what it is like to live in a war-torn country. "Turtles Can Fly" is almost entirely centered on the lives of children in Iraq and how they are impacted by the invasion of U.S. military troops at the beginning of the war. While "Kandahar" dealt mainly with adults and their struggles living in war-torn areas, "Turtles Can Fly" shows us how children were deeply affected by the terrors of war and how it caused many children to grow up much faster than would have been previously expected. 

I, as an American, found this film to be particularly difficult to watch and found it deeply saddened me. I suspect that Bahman Ghobadi chose to focus his film almost entirely on children as a way to invoke a sense of sympathy in the audience. For me, "Turtles Can Fly" opened my eyes to the fact that U.S. military troops, while helpful in many ways, uprooted the lives of innocent families and caused countless numbers of causalities with their land mines. The fact that Satellite is harmed by a land mine while trying to save Riga showed me that not only soldiers or people directly involved in the war were affected by it. 

I think it is important for Americans to see films like "Turtles Can Fly" because we are lucky enough to not be witnesses to the horrors that war can bring on a daily basis. We do not have to worry about stepping on landmines every time we leave our homes. We do not have to worry about getting shot by foreign soldiers if we step out of bounds. We do not often see camps filled with orphans whose parents were killed by bombs. While we are extremely fortunate to live in a peaceful country, it is still important to know that not every country is as lucky as we are. "Turtles Can Fly" really opened my eyes to this fact. Like I said, the film deeply saddened me- but I now have a better understanding of what life is like in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or any other war-torn country.