I just watched this thing on Youtube. Maybe it’s old and I’m just behind the curve, but I thought it was a great video. So sad! 
hmmmmm. What’s sad is I can’t even remember to add the link. . .
I don’t think it’s that old, but I do think that it is beautiful. Especially at the end, right before the camera goes dark. Very sad.
It moved me, too.
Yes, excellent video.
Pity he couldn’t have put all that effort into building a hang-glider though ;).
Sometimes dreams are the most important things.
Or sometimes dreams rule your life.
Or sometimes it’s better to follow your dreams no matter what.
Or something.
:: snif ::
I don’t get it. Why is he hammering nails into the tree? Why do the trees grow on the side of hte cliff?
The trees don’t grow on the side of the cliff. He’s dragged all the trees up the side of the cliff with the rope, and then nails them to the cliff so they’ll stay in place.
The trees aren’t growing on the cliff. Kiwis can’t fly, but they can fall with style.
ah, ok. thanks
I spotted that vid just tonight on YouTube’s front page. Beautiful – and yes, very sad. Love the animation and the way the li’l fella kicks his heels. 
Great video, but what happens when he runs out of cliff?
Someone tell me there is a giant marshmallow at the bottom!
I loved this piece as well. WhyBaby watched it with me, and was so tickled by it. She was belly-laughing and pointing (she’s not yet 2). Meanwhile, I was crying. I’m glad it made me cry. I’m glad it made her laugh. There’s some things that make me happy she doesn’t “get” yet.
For anyone still trying to figure out why we’re moved:
[spoiler] Kiwis can’t fly. So the little kiwi spends (apparently) a whole lot of time and energy nailing trees perpendicular to a cliff wall one by one. He does this so that he can jump off the cliff and “fly” through the trees. He revels in his flight, stretching his useless wings as wide as they’ll go, feeling the power of flight.
We don’t see him crash, but there probably are not marshmallows at the bottom. But it doesn’t matter to our Kiwi, because he got one good flight in before the end. [/spoiler]
I think it is important to the short that we don’t see what happens at the end. The last we see of Kiwi is pure joy and happiness, which is how we’d like to remember him. Also we are given the liberty of deciding what happens to him ourselves.
If you listen closely there is a sound at the end just after the music stops. Whether you believe that was a parachute he stowed in the same luggage area he kept his hammer and nails, or take a more realistic approach, is up to you.
Personally I think it is a more powerful film if you consider Kiwi as having made the ultimate sacrifice to achieve his dream.
Copyright 2006. Not so old.
Who’s to say that he didn’t commit suicide because he couldn’t live with his strange obsession with nailing trees to the sides of cliffs?
I just saw it on the front page last night, too. It almost made my wife cry. I thought it was creative, and unexpected. It’s somewhat rudimentary animation, but with a lot of characterization. Its funny to think how much more humanity it seems to have than something like the $100 Million Shark Tale, or what have you.
I’d like to see a follow up video that shows him hammering thousands of trees into the side of the cliff. Then, after he gets the last tree in place, he jumps off and slams into it head first.
Anyway, you can tell your kids that if he spent all that time and effort putting trees into the side of the cliff, he probably put something at the bottom to cushion his fall.
Yeah, I choose to believe he had some way to get out of it. I think it’s adorable, and the little facial expressions are just so cute. I love when the nail bounces off his head.
If he was smart enough to nail a thousand trees to the side of a cliff, he was smart enough to put a couple of airbags at the bottom. Besides, that was way too soft a “splat” to be hard ground he hit.
Oh it was LOUD. It’s just the camera was so high up we could hardly hear it.
… poor, poor Kiwi