The unstable world depicted in “The Kite Runner” has been reflected off the screen as well, in headlines caused by the film’s release in Afghanistan.
More about those later. The movie itself, based on a best-selling novel, is a broad, melodramatic tale set mostly in Kabul, but covering a period of over 20 years. By far the most compelling section is the portrait of a childhood friendship in Kabul in 1978.
Though these two boys are best friends, a sharp distinction is drawn between them. Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) is the son of a well-to-do man, and ethnically a member of the dominant Pashtun. Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada) is the son of the family servant, and a Hazara, the ethnic minority.
The central issue is one of moral courage, which Hassan has and Amir lacks. In one horrifying scene, Hassan is sexually assaulted by a group of older boys, an event that haunts both friends.
Later, the film travels to California with a group of Afghan expatriates, as the adult Amir (Khalid Abdalla, who was in “United 93”) pursues a life as a writer, and also pursues a fellow expat (Atossa Leoni).
Some of the later action is belief-challenging, but if you’ve bought into the central emotional situation, you’ll probably be willing to go along for the less credible events.
And if there is a reason to go with it, it’s the performance of Homayoun Ershadi, as Amir’s father. The character is a secular intellectual surrounded by unreason; he rails against religious radicals and Communists alike (both heaving into alarming view in Afghanistan in 1978), and he burns with courage in the face of direct threat.
Ershadi is a marvelous actor, best known for his central performance in Abbas Kiarostami’s prize-winning “Taste of Cherry.” He brings this man to such vibrant life that he overshadows Khalid Abdalla, as the adult Amir.
Marc Forster has already proved himself a literal-minded director (“Finding Neverland,” “Stranger than Fiction”), and he continues that tendency here. There’s very little that’s subtle about this movie.
“The Kite Runner” has generated publicity because of concerns that its young Afghan performers might be in danger due to local reaction the rape scene (one suspects that the depiction of the ethnic tensions might have something to do with it as well); they and their families have apparently been moved from Afghanistan prior to the film’s opening.
How strange that this is drawing attention in Afghanistan rather than, say, the rumored resurgence of the Taliban’s theocratic madness (depicted in the latter stages of the movie). But, then, blaming movies is a time-honored way of avoiding real issues.
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