Turtles Can Fly
At this
point, I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but I loved this film. The
cow, was still the most mesmerizing film thus far, but this film was my
favorite. I could not guess what was going to happen at all. The film lead off
with the shot of Agrin jumping off of that cliff. I was not sure whether or not
that actually happened or if that was some sort of a dream. The whole way, I
wanted to know what was going to happen next. I was most interested in the
contempt that Agrin held for Riga ,
despite the fact that he was blind. What I thought had happened was that Agrin
and Hengov found Riga when they
left their last village. My mind was blown when I found out that Riga
was actually Agrin’s child. She was raped by a military man when her village
was being destroyed. The contempt she had for the baby now made more sense. Agrin
kept telling Hengov that she wanted them to leave. That is where the reading
comes in. Agrin wanted diaspora. She wanted an outward movement, she wanted a
new identity. There is a quote from the reading that I found interesting
“diasporic cinema deconstructs and challenges hegemonic understandings of
national identity as it mediates a re-imagining of a nation.” This shows a
re-imaging of the people of Iraq ,
for anyone that thought all the people of Iraq
were on board with what Sadaam was doing. This showed that some of the people
were thrilled when the ruthless dictator fell. I just went on a bit of a
tangeant but the bottom line was that the resentment that Agrin had toward Riga
was because she did not really accept him as her own and furthermore Riga was
keeping her and Hengov from leaving and starting life over again. The level of
shock grew even larger for me when Agrin tied Riga
to a rock and threw him in the water, Riga
drown in the process. The tip of the cap was that Agrin did indeed commit
suicide. This was a completely selfish act because doing what she did,
basically destroyed everything Hengov loved, leaving him with nothing.
Anthony Mahalis
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