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Against All Odds

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Against All Odds
Against all Odds
Good Morning Teachers.
Today I’m going to be talking about the topic Against All Odds.
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believed, it can be achieved even when success is out of reach. The concept of the topic “Against All Odds” was seen through the documentary ‘Search for the Afghan Girl’ which is concerned with McCurry’s return journey to Pakistan to trace the location of a young Afghan girl he photographed in 1984, that photo became famous and has come to represent the plight of all refugees. The narrator, Sigourney Weaver states ‘against all odds Steve’s on a journey, to solve one of the most challenging missing person cases of our time.’ Weaver not only refers to the unlikely chances of McCurry succeeding in tracking down ‘a face without a name’ in a country plagued by war, destruction, homelessness and cultural beliefs but also of the slim chances of the Afghan girl surviving.
Success isn’t measured in leaps and bounds but in the little steps one takes each day that makes the unreachable places achievable. The scene ‘Escape’ is a re-enactment of the Afghan girl, Sharbat and her families escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan and highlights the concept of ‘Against All Odds’. The documentary uses a range of film techniques such as symbolic use of objects like costumes. An example can be the scarf that Sharbat was wearing when the photo was taken in 1984. The scarf had holes which were from burns and symbolically this represents the anguish and torture that she had to endure when fleeing to Pakistan. This creates an image in the audience’s mind that they did not have much provision when moving. Their lives were under such violent, random assaults. Sharbat and Yusufzai Gula’s parents were killed by Soviet’s. The re-enactment of this incident uses a low-angle shot of a Soviet plane dropping bombs on refugees, symbolising their ruthless abuse of power over the defenceless refugees. Sounds of the engine are heard. We see it through a

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