http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olkvWSjbQZQ
This is a review of the Doc "Skateisan".
Skateisan is a very interesting heavily constructed documentary and I think it would be good for audiences to see it that way from start to finish. Within the first minute Kabul is represented as a brutal violent and even horrific place with the use of droning music and bloody visuals even going as far as having the skaters ride past a severed goats head. This extreme view of the city is done to connote a darker and more dangerous culture than our own thus making the skaters unique and different to skaters in England and America however it could also dennote that Kabul and all of Afghanistan is bad therefore aligning with much mass media propaganda of the early 2000's. Thats just the intro...
The piece then takes a personal approach and looks at the life of a boy who Skateistan (an indoor skatepark in Kabul) has helped. Despite the sympathetic overtones of this section and the rest of the short it stays politically motivated and whilst I agree that both the fighting in Kabul is bad and that women are mistreated the Doc seems to use these things specifically to promote the skate park as something good and different and I believe the use of such negative things is in bad taste and cutaways of the war ridden landscape are unnecessary. However the doc is fairly nice and easy to watch but the audience as I said at the start must realise they are seeing a heavily constructed view of Kabul. 2/5
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