Skateistan: To Live And Skate In Kabul

Skateistan: To Live And Skate Kabul

Length: 10 Minutes

By: Orlando Von Einsiedek (2010)

This documentary follows two young skateboarders who are both from Afganistan. We are told that the Skateistan project is Afghanistan’s first co-educational skateboarding school.

The school was created because the country is currently in trouble, and has problems everywhere, therefore the skate park is an oasis where the children are able to express their inner ‘child’ and build relationships with others to prove future stability of Afghanistan itself.

When the film starts, the viewer is shown around the city of Kabul, and the initial reaction is sympathy or shock of the conditions these people are living in – rubbish on the streets, kids in rags working around rubble and soldiers with guns on the streets. The documentary sets the scene straight away – a run down town where (in opinion) the people are poor and working hard to survive everyday life. The first shows are cleverly used to interpret the town this way. The lack of colour represents the mood of the town – in a sense that it’s a struggle, compared to what we go through on a daily basis. 

We’re then introduced to the town’s markets, which are in quite poor condition: a man cutting meat on a wooden slate outside with no gloves. It’s using this to introduce the audience to the town’s poverty, or if not, their way of living. All the markets are outside in the rubble of the town.

When Murza (one of the main characters in the documentary) is shown in shot, the use of colour is really noticeable, signifying that these children and what they are doing is bringing light to the city – what they are doing is different, is key to the documentary. The character is introduced and explains his past, and how now he works at the skate park.

One of the main things I noticed was the impact the sound had on me as a viewer. It was dreary and dark whilst the city was being introduced, making you feel quite sympathic and upset about the way the city currently is. However when the children are introduced and shaking the tempo picks up and it makes it more ‘happy’ – which means that the audience want to encourage this because it had a big impact on their emotions, therefore the skating park is good and therefore a highlighting point for the children of Kabul. The use of sound is also clever by having different shots to different sounds, such as overlays or sometimes just sounds that would be in environment, like planes passing by or traffic passing. However they clever ensure that the information the children give have shots to juxtapose them. For example, when Murza says he used to work with cars, it shows him stood infront of a car, and later, someone cleaning a car. The documentary ensures relevance as well as being creative with outside sounds.

  

When the children are skating down the road, almost everyone acknowledges them; you see some shocked and some intrigued. It shows how interesting and rare skateboarding is in this town, and it’s clever because it shows that even the town lacks awareness of the skating the children love, not just the audience.

I really liked this documentary. I feel they used the footage very powerfully to play with my emotions as a viewer, and also inform me of the living conditions in Kabul and how the children there like to communicate. It created empathy and it’s a creative way of explaining and informing a greater audience of what Kabul is like to the children, and what they do in Kabul to make their lives happier.