Reel/Unreel commentary
The continuity in Reel/UnReel comes from the never-ending stream of the reel of film. The film never runs out, as a result, it acts as a continuous physical line directing the viewer till the end of the video. Because of the constancy of the line of the film, a narrative is created, with the unspeaking subject moving throughout the city acting as the plotline. The never-ending constancy of the rolling of the film creates a rhythm to the sequencing of the shots. Even when the camera is drawn away from directly shooting the film, the viewer has a feeling that the film is still moving throughout the city.
The color of the reel of the film stands out against the dusty muted colors of the cities, even the boys who are moving the film blend in. The boys blend in the most, in particular, during the scenes in the market. During that scene, there is so much motion and similarity of color in the background that the boys blend. While the reel of film, with its bright red and blue, stands out against a moving background. The rattle of the reel of film moving, like its color, also stands out against the blending noises in the background. Throughout, the rattle is a continuous sound making it, like the image of the reel, a connecting point linking each scene together.
You seem to be easily tapping into the metaphors at play—the continuous line of the narrative as a parallel to the seemingly endless roll of film; the continuous grey, like the continuous drone of the sound, that provides an opportunity for visual and auditory accents to pop out of the fray—these formal attributes are not unlike the general predicament of the people of Kabul. Good job to recognize the ways in which Alys establishes the "rules" of the film at the outset, and therefore can be free to veer from them in order to drop in shots that do not contain the children or the reels, but rather provide context for the situation. I wonder what your overall impressions are, however, as the formal choices evolve to the symbolically loaded messages in the end.
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