The Kite Runner-- Tale of Lifelong Bond and Redemption

The Kite Runner is an emotionally-charged tale of love, friendship, and redemption that spans nearly two decades. Based on Khaleid Hosseini’s best-selling and award-winning novel, the story involves two boys who grow up together in Afghanistan in the early 1980s, just before the country is occupied by the former Soviet Union. Amir, the older boy, is the meek son of an aristocratic member of the Pashtun community. Hassan, Amir’s best friend, is a younger, more assured son of a servant of Hazaran ethnicity, which relegates him and his family to lower-class status in Afghan society. Amir, who feels his father’s disappointment in him, spends his time writing and reading stories to a wide-eyed Hassan, who looks up to him.

The early scenes between the boys are in subtitles, and they are among the most warm-hearted scenes that viewers will see in theaters this year. The authenticity in these scenes must be attributed to the earnest performances of Zekeria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, the young actors who portray Amir and Hassan as children. As a young Hassan Mahmidzada is particularly memorable for his stunning ability to convey emotions ranging from exuberance and exhilaration to pain and sadness.

Kite-flying is one of the boys’ favorite activities. The activity is so popular in Afghanistan that thousands watch from balconies and fill the streets to watch as children and their families hoist kites into the sky and watch them glide into the air. Amir and Hassan team up in a local kite-flying contest that challenges individuals to fly kites and to cut the strings of the opposing kites in mid-air before their strings are cut. The team with the last kite flying wins the contest and is instantly the recipient of near city-wide adulation.

The kite-flying scenes in the film are exquisitely shot and are well-staged. The images of the flying kites effectively symbolize freedom and the hope-filled possibilities for people who live in a culture that is seemingly oppressive and fraught with danger and conflict.

The dynamics of the relationship between Amir and Hassan dramatically change after the kite-flying contest when Hassan is raped by an upper class Pashtun boy. Amir is horrified as he watches the assault in silence. He cannot bring himself to intervene to save his friend from the assault and humiliation, confirming his father’s belief that he lacked the courage that his younger friend possesses. Amir’s inability to help his friend during such a traumatic event haunts him forever.

Political unrest and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompt Amir and his father to flee their home and to emigrate to the United States. Amir and his father settle in California, where he eventually falls in love and marries a young woman. The middle section of the film, involving Amir and his father’s settlement in the United States, is the least compelling in the film. The film misses an opportunity to show the father and son struggling to adapt to life in the States, which surely would have strengthened this section of the story. Although there is some light humor in the scenes involving Amir's early encounters with his future wife, their relationship is truncated in the film.

The dramatic tension in the film returns when Amir receives a telephone call from his father’s longtime confidante in Afghanistan, whom he hasn't seen since he and his father fled the country. The man urges Amir to return to his homeland, and his decision is difficult. He is a published author with a wife and life in the United States. But his father’s friend makes a startling admission that sets Amir on a dangerous mission that pits him face to face with his past and presents him with one last opportunity to restore honor to his family and to the friend he shamefully neglected almost twenty years ago.

The rape scene in the film has been the subject of much controversy. Paramount Vantage received some criticism for casting Afghan actors in the roles of the boys, in addition to their decision to include the rape in the film adaptation of the story, thus potentially endangering the young actors. Reportedly, the studio delayed the debut of the movie for six weeks out of concern that the young actors involved in the rape scene would not be allowed to return to their homes in Afghanistan. Hosseini and the film’s director, Marc Forster, have both gone on record to defend their decision to include the rape scene in the final cut of the film. In their defense, the scene is as tastefully executed as it possibly could be, and the studio, writer, and director made the correct decisions in leaving the pivotal scene in tact.

Accomplished screenwriter David Benioff and two-time Oscar nominee Marc Forster have teamed together to craft The Kite Runner as a poignant, understated, and bravely told story that maintains the integrity of its original source material. The two thirty-something-year-old creators have teamed together as a writer and director previously in Stay, and their collaboration here is an improvement over that smaller film. Although Forster and Benioff haven’t elevated the material in their film adaptation of Hosseini’s novel, they have created a film that translates the story’s themes of redemption, freedom, hope, love, and demonstrates the powerful bonds that are formed by lifelong relationships. The Afghanistan portions of The Kite Runner were filmed in Xinjang, Kashgar, Tashkuga, and the Pamir Mountains, and the images are striking. The characters in The Kite Runner are bound and limited by geography, culture, tradition, the past, and the political future, yet their journeys of self-discovery remind us of the age-old truth that “love has no boundaries.”

Grade: B+

Acting, Writing, and Directing Propel No Country into Oscar Contention

In the opening moments of No Country for Old Men, Ed Tom Bell, a jaded sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones, describes his encounter with a young man sentenced to death. He speaks off-camera, so that his words can linger in the minds of viewers. Jones ends the well-delivered and richly-imagined monologue saying, "This ain't no country for old men." No Country for Old Men is a rousing return to form for enigmatic directors Joel and Ethan Cohen, who have been lauded for their ability to instill humor into the darkest of tales. Faithfully adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s western novel, the film tells the tale of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a hunter who discovers a trail of dead bodies and a briefcase filled with $2 million of drug money. Anton Chigurh, a quiet hitman sporting a Prince Valiant haircut, uses a tracking device attached to the inside of the briefcase to pursue Moss and the money he has been hired to retrieve. Ed Tom Bell is mystified by the violent events that ensue after Moss finds the money and flees his hometown. Things become more complicated when the powerful businessman who hires Chigurh enlists the services of a cocky bounty hunter (Woody Harrelson) to find the money in case Chigurh can't be trusted to return it.

No Country for Old Men is far and away the best film the Cohen brothers have written and directed since Fargo, their Oscar-nominated work from 1996. While No Country for Old Men is not quite as brilliant as that earlier film, their work here is remarkable in its own right. Like Fargo and their earlier masterpiece, Blood Simple, the film is centered around a crime that is followed by events that are dark, sad, and at times strangely comic.

The film showcases three great performances by Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Tommy Lee Jones, who portray characters whose morals and outlook on life could not be any more different. Moss, a tough strapped-for-cash Vietnam veteran, lives a simple life with a simple wife in a trailer in the middle of the desert. Bell is a man bewildered by the violence that disrupts the simplicity that has defined his town for years. And Anton is a memorable villain who lugs an oxygen tank around town and presses it against the foreheads of several innocent townspeople to dispense blows into his victims' heads that are no less deadly than gunshots to their heads. Chiguhr is adept at shooting a cattle gun, treating his own gunshot wounds, and making nearly every person he meets flip a coin to determine their fate. Anton, wonderfully played by a cast-against-type Jarvier Bardem, is an individual of otherworldly evil and menace.

Perhaps one of the most admirable things about No Country for Old Men is the way in which it presents characters who say and do things that intelligent audiences believe they would say and do. And much of the film’s humor rests in this truth. Set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the story takes place during a time when most Americans had already begun to lose trust in many of the institutions on which the country was founded: the government, business, the law, and the military. Yet the residents of the small Texas towns featured in the film carry themselves without guile in a world where the human condition is deteriorating and where there are fewer and fewer good men. The Cohen brothers have some fun incorporating some of the quirks of the Texas townspeople, admiring their goodness, and subtly offering some commentary on the loss of such goodness and innocence in humanity.

No Country for Old Men will likely emerge as an Oscar contender in a not-so-great year for movies. The film benefits from the talents of cinematographer Roger Deakins, who paints a desolate Texas landscape as a backdrop for this tale of murder, betrayal, and evil; excellent supporting performances; and smart writing throughout. Defying convention, the film has an ambiguous ending, and there are two questions about plot points that may leave most viewers either buying the book or placing early orders for the DVD. Although there is a strong thriller component to the film, it effectively uses its characters and the dire circumstances they face to offer a compelling commentary on the power of evil, its disruption to the simplicity of life, and its ultimate devastation to the human condition.

Grade: A-

Violence, Profanity