DVD Reviews: The Kite Runner

Don’t let the bookworm prestige of the title or the two-hour plus running time dissuade you from The Kite Runner.

It’s one of those rare ‘issue’ films that remains an enticing and emotionally electrifying viewing experience that may restore your faith in cinema after the distracting memory left by that turgid Indiana Jones encounter you had a few weeks back.

The story commences in 2000 San Francisco, where a young Afghan writer receives a mysterious phone call from someone in Pakistan telling him that he has a chance to redeem himself.

We then quickly flash back to pre-war ravaged 1978 Afghanistan, where two boys (Amir and Hassan), compete in a friendly bout of local kite ‘cutting’ against others kids in the neighbourhood. Hassan is considered to be one of the best kite runners in town, and he easily shakes off his competitors to win the contest.

But the winning brews jealousy amongst town bully Assef and his groupies, who corner the boy in an alley with the intention to take the winning kite from him. When Hassan nobly refuses to hand it over he finds himself horrifically beaten and raped by Assef.

The sting in the tale comes in the form of a cowardly Amir who has secretly observed the act from afar but is too chicken to intervene or offer any assistance to his wounded friend. Later Amir attempts to cope with his own guilt by angrily lashing out at his poor faithful friend Hassan, having the audacity to frame the little nipper for stealing his priceless watch. Although he isn’t to blame, Hassan admits to stealing the item and finds himself leaving town with his downtrodden father, never to enter Amir’s life again.

Decades later Amir finds that the events of that fateful day clearly influenced both their lives in different ways, for better and for worse, and now he has been given the opportunity to finally redeem himself and change the uncertain future for someone close to his heart.

OK this might make The Kite Runner sound like self-indulgent pretentious drivel, but rest assured this is an intelligent and powerful film that does enormous justice to the audacious source material (what do you expect, it’s from Khaled Hosseini’s best seller!). It features some pretty impressive honours from all involved, ranging from the two young charismatic leads to Khalid Abdalla (previously witnessed in United 93) as th

e older incarnation of Amir in addition to boasting some pretty nifty (albeit CGI assisted) kite flying/cutting sequences.

If you were too lazy to either read the book or to get your bum on the seat at the multiplex then this is your third chance to catch something truly uplifting on DVD.

And the extras are pretty impressive too. There’s an insightful commentary from director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction) and novelist Khaled Hosseini (who also provides an optional introduction to the film), several absorbing mini docs covering the faithful page to screen translation and how the harrowing literary imagery was brought vividly to life on screen, and insightful discussions with both the cast and several members of the crew.

The Kite Runner may be heavy-handed at certain narrative junctures where there’s a lot of leaning toward coincidental events that wouldn’t look out of place in a Catherine Cook adaptation, but at least we know that our future Bond helmer has got the directorial razzmatazz to make something prosperous out of that preposterously pegged Quantum of Solace project.

[story by Oliver Pfeiffer]