-Ernest Hemingway
Kiwi!: Are your dreams worth dying for?
March 4, 2009
This clip was shown to us during my class in ORPLADE. I was moved. A very short clip, yet it gave me tons of inspiration. It’s a matter on which perspective you opt to choose to interpret the video.
Here’s how the creator (Dony Permedi) explains the story behind Kiwi and some of the comments:
“Kiwi! is an animation about a Kiwi - a type of bird that cannot fly, who spends its whole life working towards achieving his dream. The kiwi strived to create the illusion that it was flying over a forest as it soared down through the sky from the top of a cliff. Thus, the kiwi spent what must have been its whole life nailing trees to the side of a cliff. All this, to fulfil its one dream of flying, even though it was technically unable to. There are several powerful messages behind Kiwi, but mainly, it makes you think: no matter how absurd and seemingly out of reach your dreams are, what’s stopping you from achieving them?”
Dony (author of the film): “Well, let’s see… I think you can take the wrong message away from Kiwi. Some might see it as me telling you that your dreams are worth dying for (if he did die). I don’t necessarily believe that, but I think I am showing a character who is like that. Some people can be obsessive over something that only they can understand. I suppose that’s why I ended it the way I did. I think part of the sadness, comes from people asking ‘Why would he do such a thing? What is driving him to do all of this?’
Guest : I loved the film a lot but I didn’t get the same message as most people from this film. I found it really sad because it seems to me we sometimes decide that a particular goal in life is our dream, and that without it our life is meaningless and then we spend our entire lives chasing that one dream. Even if it comes true, we’ve missed so much along the way by being focused on that one thing that perhaps it was not such a great thing after all. In fact, maybe we created a meaningless life by being so narrow minded. I feel like I do this all the time in my life - I forget to live in the moment. I think the Kiwi was doing this her whole life but then right at the end, it seemed to me that the Kiwi was surprised - at the moment of impact she was in the moment and it was a shock. Thank you for making such a sweet and thought provoking film.
Hermease: Thinking about these lead me to a whole new place.Didn’t kiwi’s little wing stubs reveal the “why” of the whole effort?How tormented must he have been that he couldn’t fly, to do what he did?How gifted and talented was this little bird? Was he aware of it?Did he truly savor the one minute flight? Was it worth it?What things in my life do I feel the way he felt about flying?
