THE KITE RUNNER Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Paramount Vantage/ DreamWorks Pictures
Grade: B+
Directed by: Marc Forster
Written By: David Benioff, from Khaled Hosseini’s novel
Cast: Khalid Abdalla, Homayoun Ershadi, Zekiria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, Shaun Touyb, Nabi Tanha
Screened at: Dolby88, NYC, 11/14/07
Opens: December 14, 2007 Some say that you can’t go home again; that great wrongs cannot be righted after decades have passed. Khaled Hoosseini, who wrote the best-selling novel “The Kite Runner,” disagrees. In David Benioff’s adaptation for the screen directed by Marc Forster, a tale unfolds of two young boys in Afghanistan, one the son of a rich, secular man, the other, apparently the offspring of the older man’s servant. The two boys are best of friends, treating each other as equals despite their differences in class, in education and in ethnicity. In that last regard, young Hassan (Ahmad Khan) is a member of the minority Hazara sect, making up eight percent of the people, while the privileged young Amir (Zekiria Ebrahimi) is of the majority Pashtuns, which today constitute thirty-six percent of the population. (Leave it to the Afghans to follow the trend of so much of the world in finding excuses to look with disfavor on minority groups. One of the themes of this epic story is the contempt that three young Pashtuns have for the servant lad of a minority ethnic group.) Benefitting from two delightful performances from young Zekiria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan, who are the title kite runners, Marc Forster’s movie is divided into three segment, two of them worlds and civilizations apart, in one case illustrating a single country that turned itself inside out, already well behind the west technologically, yet turning itself back several centuries in time. A brief opening section in San Francisco introduces us to Amir (Khalid Abdalla), a youthful writer at the turn of the century, who receives a call from his father’s old friend, Ali (Nabi Tanha), now in ill health in Pakistan. Assuring Amir that “There is a way to be good again,” Ali motivates a guilt-ridden Amir to return to Kabul. Director Forster shifts the scene to 1978, a year before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, where kids in Kabul are having fun like children everywhere. Amir and his Hassan take part in a kite-flying contest, whose cryptic rules call for “cutting” the opponents kites in order to win. Amir is particularly intent on victory since he desperately hopes for more affection from his father, Baba (Homayoun Ershadi), who strangely showers more affection on the servant friend of Amir, Hassan, than on his own son. When Hassan is raped by neighborhood toughs, Amir witnesses the act, unseen, doing nothing to stop the brutality, nor does he report the violation. His sense of guilt will later lead an older Hassan to journey back to Kabul, after the Soviets have been driven out and the Taliban have taken over, in order to redeem himself for betraying his friend A particularly frightening scene involves the way the Taliban are treating their own people worse than the Soviets, traveling about in vehicles, making sure that all adult males are wearing appropriately unshaven beards. In one incident, a woman completely covered together with her male consort are paraded to a soccer stadium to be stoned for adultery, an execution which is graphically displayed. The way some of the higher-ups among the Taliban violate their own rules in buying boys from an orphanage for their own sexual pleasure, even playing music to watch these hapless lads dance for them should be shocking, but is merely testament to what happens when any extremist group tries to block the natural inclinations of human beings. The cast, all of Middle Eastern stock, are filmed by Roberto Schaefer in the deserts of Western China bordering Afghanistan, some of the stark mountainous scenery exciting the traveler instinct in those members of the audience who do not think that lying on the beach sipping margaritas is what vacations should be all about. Schaefer’s lensing of kite running could make the sport something that Americans might consider taking up if indeed they have not done so already. “The Kite Runner” stands out thematically for its treatment of ethnic tensions, class distinctions, international warfare and internecine conflict, but far more important it’s a well-conceived, exquisitely acted story. Rated PG-13. 122 minutes. © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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