This is one of the big fall movies that I haven’t had a chance to check out yet, and I’m hoping to change that as soon as I get back from vacation later in the month.
Hawaii International Film Festival
007: THE KITE RUNNER: EVERY CUT IS THE DEEPEST
by Albert Lanier
It is Afghanistan in the 1970's and scores of young boys are engaged on rooftops and throughout city streets in the capital of Kabul in an aggressive, cutthroat competition. Are they clustered in gangs and facing each other with knives drawn? Are they armed with rifles and pistols and taking pot shots at each other?
No, they're flying kites.
Actually, the lads are taking part in a kite cutting contest where the object is sever or cut the line of another person kite and prevent them from soaring high and free in the sky. Therefore, the winning kite is the only unscathed by such relentless cutting tactics.
The winner of this actual contest is a young boy named Amir who is aided by his buddy Hassan, the son of a servant who works in their household.
Amir and Hassan not enjoy flying kites-Hassan has an almost perfect ability to judge the exact location where a kite may fall from the sky and to be there to scoop it up.
Both boys also enjoy trudging off to the local cinema to watch movies like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN though they jokingly wonder how the actors can talk with such perfect Farsi accents.
However, the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 forces Amir and his Baba to flee to Pakistan and then the U.S.
Amir's Baba ends up running a gas station and store in San Francisco, California and Amir graduates from a community college and intends to become a writer.
Amir ends up marrying Soraya, the daughter of an Afgani Army General who have also settled in the Bay Area.
It seems as if everything is falling into place. It is the year 2000. Amir's is settling down and he is the process of taking a look at his new novel when he receives a phone call from a family friend who urges him to return to Afghanistan.
It is this call that propels the latter half of the new drama THE KITE RUNNER directed by Marc Forster, the helmer behind FINDING NEVERLAND and MONSTERS BALL, which had a gala screening on Saturday, October 20 as part of the 27th annual Hawaii International Film Festival. The film is the cinematic adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name written by novelist Khaled Hosseini.
Most readers of this review may be familiar with the controversy swirling around this film primarily the move by Paramount Vantage, the film distributors, to delay the film's release until December because of the fear of violence and violent reprisals especially to the two young actors who play Amir and Hassan as boys (whose names-although listed on IMDB and other sites-I'd rather not list here).
But I am not interested in discussing the controversy in depth but talking about whether THE KITE RUNNER works as a movie or not.
Certainly, fans and admirers of the book-which I confess I haven't read-will find the characters they loved fleshed out (or nearly so) in THE KITE RUNNER.
They also witness the rape of young Hassan by Pashtun bullies in what has to be the most disturbing scene in the film.
Let me just say that I disliked this scene intensely and I know what some of you out there are going to say: It was an important part of the book, an important plot point in the film, necessary to provide dramatic and emotional tension between the characters.
I still don't care. What bothers me is that actual children were involved in this scene (which admittedly was handled with some care). Having adult actors handle hot-button material doesn't bother me at all but children are a different story. These young actors are not old or mature enough to see the impact that such choices could have on their lives.
The whole rape scene reeks of exploitation. Though there are clearly plausible reasons for its inclusion, the scene constituted the low point of the film for me.
Structurally, THE KITE RUNNER begins in 2000 flashes back to 70's Afghanistan and then moves to San Francisco before returning once again to Afghanistan, this time in the 21st Century.
It is Taliban-ruled Afghanistan that Amir not only witnesses what happened to his former homeland but visits a family friend Rahim Khan. Khan reveals a long-held family secret(there always seem to be secrets in these types of films) and sets Amir off on a mission that reconnects him to Hassan and his childhood.
Of course, I won't reveal the secret or what Amir does in Afghanistan. You will have to watch THE KITE RUNNER-in whatever way, shape or form- to find that out.
Quite frankly, THE KITE RUNNER is another "literary" product of the Hollywood adaptation machine, a device that takes perfectly good works of literature and renders them into the cinematic equivalent of Readers Digest Condensed Books.
The film's script- as written by film scribe David Benioff- tends toward the simplistic, rudimentary and downright boring at times (in once scene, where Amir and Soraya talk at a market, Amir asks what Soraya is reading and she shows him WUTHERING HEIGHTS whereupon he replies "Its a sad story"-obviously an indication of the sparkling wit on display in this film). The characters are the typical chess pieces moved by the screenwriter (except generally you need to be intelligent to play Chess) as opposed to three-dimensional individuals.
The acting here is generally middling. Khalid Abdalla is generally unimpressive as Amir. He covers all the bases here as Amir but nothing more. Abdalla might be a good actor but I can't tell that from this performance. Atossa Leoni does more with less as Soraya, Amir's wife. Leoni at least conveys a certain logical reticence that is right given her character's history. Their scenes together are a study of the absence of actors' chemistry. Frankly, they seem more like shy high school kids trying to get up the courage to ask each other to dance at the prom.
However, Shaun Toub does fairly good work here as Rahim Khan, Abdul Qadir Farookh has a bit of a screen presence as General Taher, Amir''s father-in-Law and Said Taghmaoui turns in solid work as Farid, Amir's guide in Afghanistan.
The film's best performance comes from Homoyon Ershadi as Amir's father. Ershadi does a fine job of trying sculpt a rounded performance showing several sides of Baba. In fact, Erhsadi sells one scene beautifully. A truck that Baba and Amir are riding in with several other escaping Afganis is stopped by Russian soldiers and one of soldiers wants to have sex with the wife of one of the passengers. Ershadi stands up to the soldier with such fierceness and resolute power that the soldier is nearly compelled to kill him.
In the end though, I do think THE KITE RUNNER succeeds and the main reason why it does is the fine work of director Marc Forster. Forster uses the skills he brought to films such as MONSTERS BALL effectively here by eliminating a lot of the blatant melodramatic excesses that easily could have been on display in a film of this time and moving toward a measure of emotional restraint at times.
Forster knows that it is better to have certain emotional outlets used only at certain peak times then be plugged in and used constantly throughout. Therefore, the film does have effective and moving moments that aren't necessarily overtly tear inducing.
For me, the most touching scenes in the movie are when numbers of young boys are flying kites even though there is nothing seemingly moving or emotional about it. Given Afghanistan's history and years of warfare, these scenes are simply wonderful because they are not heavy-handed or manipulative in the waterworks or tear-producing department.
Despite its flaws, THE KITE RUNNER is a modestly effective drama that manages to stir emotions quite effective despite a scene that may offend many. It is a film that convinces the viewer that best moments of life are often the small, seemingly trivial ones where even simply flying a kite is a powerful statement about joy, happiness and friendship.
