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Set largely in Afghanistan (although it was shot, for the most part, along the Afghan border in China), Marc Forster’s adaptation of Khalid Hosseini’s international best-seller The Kite Runner gives fans of the book everything they could possibly want from a transfer to the big (or little) screen, which is especially pleasing when you consider just how complex the original book was. 

Opening in modern day California (where the author Hosseini currently calls home) with Amir and his wife opening a box containing Amir’s debut novel, a long distance phone call from his late father’s servant calls him home to Afghanistan – and the calling home returns us to Amir’s youth, specifically his friendship with Hassan, his father’s servant’s young son. Although the two children play together (flying kites and kite running, a practice that follows the severing of your opponent’s kite after vicious, swooping air battles, beautifully and vividly recreated onscreen, and then chasing down the severed kite as a spoil of war), the caste system sets them apart (Amir is Pashtun and while Hassan is Hazara), a division only made worse following a double tragedy at the film’s centre. 
 
With its depiction of Kabul, particularly, that begins prior to the first Soviet invasion in 1979, and that takes us through the rise of the Taliban and the subsequent destruction of a once beautiful city, watching The Kite Runner is a curious and compelling experience. Curious because it is in some ways a classic tale (a tale that harks back via Sleepers to Angels with Dirty Faces, with acts committed by children resonating for adults decades later) and compelling as a result of the occasionally unforgiving world we are offered a glimpse of (a scene in which an adulteress is stoned according to Shi’a law is particularly hard to stomach). 

Don’t be put off by the flood of controversy (the ban in Afghanistan, the news of how the child actors had to be spirited out of the country to avoid sectarian violence) and don’t dismiss the movie as ‘worthy’; The Kite Runner is one of those rare beasts, an intelligent movie with heart. Don’t miss it.

 

Peter Wild on 31st March 2008
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