The last kite scene

The resolutions that can be seen revolving around this scene is that Amir is making up for breaking his promise to Sohrab, for ridding the little hope Sohrab had. Another resolution is that Amir is running the kite for love, wherelse before Amir had ran for the kite because he was always chasing Hassan, wanting to catch up to Hassan, that he could be better, but in this last scene, Amir ran purely for the kite, and not after Hassan. Hassan had said "For you, a thousand times over", and when Amir said it, it indicates that Amr is in the shoes of Hassan, which shows that Amir is finally finding redemption by loving and giving his all for Sohrab, the only living memoir of Hassan, which then indicates that Amir is finally returning Hassan's love through Sohrab. The quote also suggests that Amir has finally gotten over the fact that Hassan, since the quote has been torturing him all through his life and by saying it out loud in life, it seems that Amir has finally accepted a part of his past that he has been running from. The last kite scene also shows that Amir has finally resolved the regret of not saving Hassan or contacting Hassan inside his heart.

Rachel's Reflection

The medium of the project is a video, sort of a muted video that illustrates for the readers and audience how the last kite scene is. At the middle of the video, the video turns a sepia color to indicate that it was a memory of Amir's, of Hassan and Amir's childhood and the time they spent together. The video is also showing the past and love between Hassan and Amir. The aspect of the novel that the video focuses on is redemption. The last kite scene, can be seen as a scene where a lot of the conflicts that has been building up be finally solved, and where the conflicts that has been resolved, their resolution to be reinstated again. The last scene is sort of a wrap up scene, that everything is finally fine, and that both characters, Amir and Sohrab, has a chance at a happy ending. My part in the project, was the main editor of the video, and Rosie helping me out on where things can be improved since I am only one person with one perspective. The main skeleton of the proposal was also written by me, and Rosie helped and "proofread" the outline and adding some more improvements of the outline. In the video, I play Sohrab, even though my part in the video was minimal, I was in charge of organizing what scenes were to be filmed, with the aid of Rosie. The filming of the video took 2 days to accomplish. The most challenging part in this project is allowing me to edit the video when the original format was mts, which was not compatible with my mac. It was only until tuesday night before the due date that Rosie managed to convert it and send it to me. And we spent most of night, in communication, with Jason, helping me edit by suggesting new ideas and comments to me. I think, with better time planned, the soundtrack of the video could be done better, since under limited time and poor mental and physical conditions, the editing of the music was not as smooth and nice as I would have liked it. And the limited time, I wasn't able to search for better music to edit for the video. But overall, the video can be considered a success.

The most powerful part of the video, in my opinion, is the part where Amir says "For you.." and than a stream of memories with Hassan and Amir, when they were children, were shown, ending with Hassan shouting "...a thousand times over". This particular set up can show the audience and readers that by Amir saying this quote, all the love, redemption that Amir has been trying to achieve, Amir finally has them, and also shows the start of something new and good, hinting that they both may have a happy life, after the traumas both Amir and Sohrab has been through. The intentions behind the project is to show the significance and the "hidden" importance behind such a simple scene. The chosen scene happens to be one of the last events which would hold some significance. Hosseini had chosen, in the last scene, for Amir to say "For you, a thousand times over", which was previously said by Hassan, and from the beginning of the book, has been plaguing Amir, and when Amir says it aloud, it shows that Amir is finally at peace inside, that he is no longer fighting the guilt of not being able to protect his half-brother. Another importance of the last kite scene is the re-ignition of life in Sohrab's eyes. Hosseini arranges the last kite scene at the back of the book, gives the novel a sense of the first leaf of the winter to sprout from the ground, when the coldness and silence in Sohrab's eyes, and the excitement of flying a kite bringing life to his eyes, may indicate the start of a family for both Amir and Sohrab. Another "hidden" importance in the scene is that when Amir ran for the kite for Sohrab, this time, Amir was running for Sohrab, for fun and not for his father or after Hassan or trying to be the better son for his father.

Rosie's Reflections

Our selected genre is a mute video and we made it by filming clips, editing the clips so that the slips are in the correct sequence as in the movie we have thought of creating, and recording no conversations while replacing the conversations with music. We made it about Amir flying the kite with Sohrab and merging it with Amir's memories with Hassan. The first day we filmed the video, we forgot to bring a kite and so we had to figure out some alternative plan really quick. We instantly thought of borrowing a lie so we borrowed an extremely long line from Mrs. Z and tied it to the handrail on the third floor. After that we started to film and though the line got knotted a lot of times and we had to spend time unknotting them, we moved through the script pretty quickly and got through most of the parts in which we needed the kite in. The second day we filmed the video, we filmed it in various sites in the campus and filmed a lot of running for kite scenes. It was perfect timing because we got to film the very end of Hassan saying "A thousand times over" with the camera zooming in on the setting sun, which was really nice. I think we filmed smoother the second day since there was less scenes and there was less people on campus that day sine it was already pretty late. We were going to edit the videos the following weekend, but because my video camera is HD and many computers can't open HD files, we had to struggle making it work. However, in the end it did work and Rachel edited the video. I think we executed our plan pretty well and we succeeded in getting to our goal of how the video/movie should be like.

Through the filming process, I had a more personal relation to how Amir finally resolved the regret of not saving Hassan and finally becoming more like Hassan by running unselfishly for Sohrab. After running so many times as Hassan with Amir, I feel like Hassan was really happy before the assault by Assef because he was with whom he cared and loved for, even if he was always going to be "less" than Amir in all the ways of status and appearance. After watching our final edited version of the video, I feel like Amir really let down the big unfinished business of Hassan in his heart and ran purely for love, for Hassan and Sohrab, for the people he loves. We decided to make everything in the video mute and replace the sound with music that goes with the mood of the scenes. I think this decision was good because without the different sounds in the video, the viewers can focus on the emotion and meaning in the video and the music can even enhances the viewer's perception of the video. I also feel that the memories of Hassan and Amir really shows how Amir finally resolved his regret of Hassan since the memories are all happy and its sort of like Amir is going over his memories with Hassan. The only part that has voices is the part where Amir says " For you" and then cuts to memories and then cuts to Hassan's "A thousand times over", which makes that part stand out the most. I think that part really shows the contrast of Amir and Hassan's "For you, A thousand times over" since Amir is just starting to be unselfish and do things out of love, while Hassan has been doing everything out of love his whole life.

Jason's Reflections

For the creative assignment, our group made a video based on Amir’s redemption of Hassan. In the video, there is the scene where Amir is teaching Sohrab how to fly a kite and also flashback scenes of Amir and Hassan’s childhood. While we were filming the video, we didn’t have the kite, so we had to use a line to somehow show the presence of the kite. It went pretty well. Also, we shoot several scenes several times but they turn out alright. Especially the last scene, where Hassan said, “a thousand times over”, we had it shot with the setting sun. The effects made the video look vivid. Overall, I think we executed our plan pretty well because the video we made is exactly like how we want it to look like in the beginning.

Along the way, I finally related myself to Amir as he solved his unfinished business with Hassan. I can see his regrets of not being loyal to Hassan like he did to him. Also, I’ve experienced the childhood of Amir and Hassan in the video. Those days, where everything was once peaceful, seemed nice. Even though the only part that I actually spoke in the video is when I said, “For you,” but it is a really powerful phrase followed by, “a thousand times over.” at the end of the flashback, where Hassan completed the sentence. This shows how Amir has changed, not being selfish anymore and finally see Hassan as his true friend, his brother. Overall, I really enjoyed being Amir in the video!