I recently viewed two news videos relating to Afghanistan from the New York Times Web site: From Kabul to Prep School and The Kite Fliers of Kabul. While both videos were inspiring, I thought the one about the kite fliers had a complete story and was more interesting.
From Kabul to Prep School is about an Afghan girl who came to the United States during the war for a soccer camp. Her talent was widely received during the camp, and she was eventually awarded a scholarship to continue her education and play soccer in America. The premise of the story—at least as I understood it from the beginning of the video—was about how the game of soccer inspired the girl’s journey from Afghanistan to the United States in a time of crisis. But because of some immigration issues, the girl started school when the soccer season was over, so the focus of the story shifted from soccer to Afghan women and education. This change in focus was a bit awkward and had some contradictory information. First the narrator says the girl came from a country that deprived women an education, yet we see this girl speak in fluent English, and we later learn that she had completed high school in Kabul. Also, in trying to explain some of the girl’s incompetence, the principal of the school says she was never exposed to a calculator. Then we find out, that because she never used a calculator, math and algebra were easy for her.
Having said all that, I am sure this girl had an exciting and inspiring story, but I felt this video didn’t showcase that story. By the way, I also thought the video was too long.
The one about the kite fliers, on the other hand, was just so beautiful. It was educational, informative, relevant to current events and fun to watch. The video was inspired by the Kite Runner, a bestselling book turned into a movie. The book talked about kite fighting in Afghanistan, a sport where kite flyers try to bring down other competitors’ kites. You really don’t get the concept of this activity until you actually see it, and this video does a great job in presenting it. The best part about the video, however, was showcasing the human aspect of this sport: in a place where no green land exists, people can’t play soccer or other sports. Their only alternative is kite fighting—and they hold a lot of passion for this activity. Overall, I thought the video told a complete story and was brilliantly made.
Definitely, I love the second one more! When I first saw the name of the video, it reminded me about the “Kite Runner”. Also, in this video, it used the footage of that movie. But I was wonder, does it necesary to use the footage of the movie?
The video is four minutes’ long, but when I was watching, I didn’t get bored at all. This video has a such great theme and story, and the journalist delivered it very well, telling us all about the history, the present policy, making kite and the sports of kite fighting. However, from visual aspect, I just feel that it could be better. I feel in this case, more close-up shot can be better. I wanna see the facial expression of the kids flying kites. Imaging, if we can see a close-up shot of kite in the sunset, that can be wonderful and can give us the feeling of peace and joy.
In this video, people seems so satisfied and enjoy this sports, but the reality is contrary– war and poverty. People enjoy this sports because they can have their minds go away while flying kites, and even simply running after kites make people happy. People had blood on their hands because of the nylon string, but they said that they didn’t care, because it was the only way for them to escape from the reality.
Though in this video, people don’t complain about the cruel reality by words, we can see by ourselves from the video what they are suffering. The kite maker make his living on making kites, and from the video, I guess he is kinda like homeless, because his quilt just put behind him, outside, but not in a room. I think it is the power of video. The image itself can deliver so many information that sometimes even have more power than words.