After seeing it just once, the feeling you are left with mostly is confusion. After watching it for a second the feeling is more uneasiness. Kirsten Johnson presents a very good parallel between the situation in Kabul and in Maryland. We would not think of making this parallel and yet she makes it and represents it for us in a way that makes it easier to understand. If just reading about it in a text, we might not understand well the comparison but having it on film with the exact same object and similar images, it works really well. When we see the blimp in Kabul, in some shots we almost forget that it is there because it is far in the background. By having much further away in the background makes it looks like it is almost normal that it is there and that it is not bothering anyone. We are also not told what its capacities are because it is classified so it gives us the feeling of “if we don’t know what it can do then we are not as afraid.” When going to the blimp in Maryland, we already have more information. One of the most powerful images from the film is when the blimp is in the background and then the american flag comes in the foreground, it tells it all about the meaning of it without using any words. It clearly shows us the origins of those devices, when the foreground is the church as well. One question I have when I watched it twice was: Why would they want to fly the surveillance system as much as possible if the camera is broken when it is in Afghanistan?
->is it to make people think there is always something/someone watching?
Kirsten Johnson is always able to create a meaningful piece and point of view without speaking at all, which makes it even more important that the audience comes to the conclusions she is putting in front of us without saying anything.