Middle East Art Fusion

|* cinema. Voices of Iraq VS Turtles Can Fly.

During the POFF festival in Tallinn this year, we were able to see the movie from Iraq called "Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand" ("Turtle Can Fly"), 2004. I was lucky to watch another movie of this director before - "Zamani barayé masti asbha" ("A Time for Drunken Horses"). I can say that his style of movies really appealed to me. It is different from any other movies, which show the difficulties and horrors of the war.

The director Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian Kurd and has a strong emotional bound to the issues of events in the Middle East. In his interview he said that while he was on his trip to finish and promote "A Time for Drunken Horses", he was shocked by the things he saw and decided to film as fast as possible. The movie was done in the very short period of time. I think that is the reason for it being so concentrated, powerful and touching. The story of "Turtles can fly" unfolds near the Turkey-Iran border and tells about the lives of orphans village. Children earn their living by collecting and selling the mines. I liked how the beginning and the end form the circle: in the beginning all chidren wait for the Americans, one boy asks: "Do you want to meet Americans?", in the end we get the same phrase, but the meaning is completely different. Now the American troops represent not the bright and perfect future, but the same hard times for Iraqi civilians again. I think that Bahman Ghobadi wanted to show that under the Saddam Iraq suffered. Then Iraqi people were promised future and fooled. There are, of course, pluses of the fall of Saddam, but there are many minuses of the way it was done and what it lead to.

In opposition to "Turtles can fly" I would suggest to watch "Voices of Iraq", 2004. It is a documentary movie, which claim to have been directed by people of Iraq. For more information you can check the official website of the movie. The movie is believed to create the new genre of cinema. The producers distributed more than 150 digital video cameras across Iraq to people, who filmed their everyday life and end up with more than 400 hours of footage. Later on it was edited and issued as documentary. There is a big controvercy over the whole matter. Those working in cinema or media can understand that having any raw material you can create any position you like through the means of editing. It is more than easy to choose the favoured opinions and to omit the unwanted ones.

There has been an interesting comment posted on the board of IMDB, with the topic "Propaganda: Producers of this movie= ties to Bush Administration", which lead to many people arguing with each other. You need to register to be able to see the topic, but I will put a quote from that comment here:

"If you do not think that this film has any political ties, then read some of this. The public relations group called Manning, Selvage & Lee (MS&L) (one of the largest U.S. public relations companies, estimated to have more than 1,000 employees and approximately $100 million in turnover)did publicity for this film. It happens to be the same group that runs all of those "ARMY OF ONE" ads for the U.S. Army. Don't tell me that this film was directed by "The People of Iraq." That has got to be the most misleading title EVER, and the PR Firm and the Producers should be ashamed of themselves for taking footage of these people, and editing it to the political message they wanted to push.[...] Also, the film was produced with much help from "The Iraq Foundation," which provided all of the toture footage. They are located in Washington DC, and the foundation receives their funding from the State Department, which is headed by Colin Powell, a member of the Bush Administration..[...] Independent Documentaries do not get funded by the Government and publicized by huge firms like "Manning, Selvage, and Lee." Look at their website, http://www.mslpr.com/"

What can I say from my side? Watch the two movies for yourself and make up you mind. I think that there cannot possibly be 100% true approach or representation of any subject, so it is always useful to look at all points of view. We can never be sure who is right and who is wrong. There will always be people for and against and it is not possible to make everyone happy at the same time.

posted by Aleksandra Birjukova @ 12.12.05