As a voracious reader, if a book is made into a film, chances are I’ve read it. Strangely, before seeing The Kite Runner, I had not read the best selling novel by Khaled Hosseini. I don’t quite know why, whether it was the serious subject matter or just timing, I never got to it. After seeing director Marc Forester’s (Finding Neverland) sad but stunning adaptation, the novel now has a prominent place in my stack of bedside reading.
The story begins with young boys flying kites in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1978. Life is fairly peaceful; this is before the Russian invasion, the Taliban and the war that would turn the country into anarchy. The Kite Runner focuses on the friendship between a young boy named Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) and Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada), son of the family’s servant, Ali (Nabi Tanha). The two boys are virtually inseparable and act like brothers. Though Hassan is the smaller of the two boys, he goes out of his way to protect Amir whenever he has to. Hassan regular protects Amir from a town bully, Assef (Elham Ehsas) who is jealous of Amir’s kite and Hassan’s skills as a kite runner. He is able to predict when a kite will return to earth and be there, ready to retrieve it. Hassan is also an easy target for derision because of his status as the son of a servant.
Amir’s father Baba is a well-to-do Afghani who has no use for the mullahs. He is an intellectual and a secularist, who drives a Mustang and spends his time taking the boys to American movies. While Baba’s best friend Rahim Khan (Shaun Toub) wholeheartedly supports Amir’s love of literature and writing, Baba remains deeply concerned about his sons’ inability to fend for himself. Even though Hassan may be hindering his sons’ emotional growth Baba continues to provide for the boy and his father as though they were his own family.
Following in the footsteps of his father, Amir becomes a kite fighting champion along with Hassan. Once the competition is decided, Hassan uses his kite running skills to track down the kite the two defeated to win the championship. When he recovers the kite, the bully Assef reappears and changes the boys’ lives forever. When Hassan refuses to surrender the kite to the bully, Assef and his gang track down Hassan, and brutally rape him. Though Amir arrives in time to see the attack taking place, he does nothing to stop it. From then on, Amir is no longer able to face his friend. Whether from guilt or shame, both boys can no longer communicate with each other. Eventually, Amir plants evidence to make Hassan seem like a thief. Hassan, despite his innocence, confesses. Though Baba forgives him, Ali insists they must leave Baba’s employment immediately, despite forty years of loyal service.
The film opens with the modern day Amir in Los Angeles (circa 2000), opening a box full of copies of his new novel. He receives a telephone call from his father’s friend Rahim Khan: “You should come home. There is a way to be good again.” The tagline of The Kite Runner, “there is a way to be good again,” is critical to the entire story; what follows after the phone call is as chain of events that leads to Amir trying to heal the wounds of the past. Had Amir not told a lie as a boy, Hassan might have been with him and he wouldn’t be carrying around this tremendous sense of guilt and emptiness.
The message of The Kite Runner is one of atonement. The final act of the film involves Amir going back to Pakistan. Though Hassan and his wife have been killed, Amir resolves to rescue Hassan’s young son from the Taliban that now rule Afghanistan. Amir finds himself in a country he barely recognizes as he sneaks around in search of young Sohrab (Ali Danish Bakhty Ari). Unable to have children with his wife, Amir decides to bring Sohrab back to the United States and raise him as their son.
It’s hard to call The Kite Runner an enjoyable film. It tackles some very tough issues on a very personal level. While I was happy that Amir was able to bring Sohrab home for a better life, I still could not excuse his treatment of Hassan so many years before. One would hope that a true friend wouldn’t betray someone as completely as Amir did Hassan.Given the current state of Afghanistan, The Kite Runner provides an education to the unfamiliar about the country before the Russian invasion and the rise of the Taliban. The film stands as a reminder of the beauty of the now war torn nation.
Working from Khaled Hosseini’s novel, screenwriter David Benioff and director Marc Forster have done a remarkable job crafting a story not in their native tongue. Though much of The Kite Runner is in English, many of the subtitled scenes are in Dari, is an Afghan dialect of Farsi, or Persian. Forster required a translator to work with several actors who couldn’t speak English. The acting in The Kite Runner is superb. The actors playing the young Amir and Hassan are incredibly talented. Both of them give emotionally powerful performances that lend to the gravity of the story being told.
The Kite Runner is a tragic and powerful film about friendship, culture and atonement. This is a beautifully crafted film that deserves to be seen. You will have to form your own opinions about the actions of Amir as a young boy.
The Blu-ray preserves the original anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen transfer. The colors are wonderful. Details are sharp and flesh tones are accurate. You will notice some beautiful cinematography during the kite flying scenes that dominate the early part of the film. Dreamworks has done a great job of making those scenes really pop. There is no noticeable artificing or digital debris to speak of; All in all, The Kite Runner comes equipped with a very impressive picture.
The film is presented in True HD English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround and contains soundtracks for both French and Spanish. Subtitles are provided in all three languages. Since The Kite Runner is a dialogue driven film, the soundtrack does a great job of providing ample sound. Bass and treble are well distributed and dialogue us easy to understand. I also noted that the music by Alberto Iglesias, seemed to fill the room.
The Kite Runner Blu-ray contains the same extras as the DVD, released last year. Except for the theatrical trailer all of the features are presented in standard definition: “A Commentary with Marc Foster, Khaled Hosseini and David Benioff” in which the group talks about how they adopted the novel for the screen and Hosseini gives some additional information on Afghanistan. In the featurette “Words from the Kite Runner” (14:24) the Benioff and Forster discuss what interested them in the project and Hosseini discusses how he became a writer after originally studying to be a doctor. “Images from the Kite Runner” (24:38) focuses more on the technical aspects of the making of the film. The Kite Runner also includes a PSA from author Khaled Hosseini giving a brief introduction to the film and asking for support of Afghanistan through a charitable organization. The theatrical trailer is also included.
