nwasianweekly.com
Dec. 15, 2007

Image provided by Paramount Vantage

Zekiria Ebrahimi (left) and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, the child actors in “The Kite Runner,” were recently relocated to the United Arab Emirates by Paramount Pictures. The boys had feared reprisal for the film’s depiction of a culturally taboo rape scene.

‘The Kite Runner’ soars
as an adaptation of the book

By N.P. Thompson
Northwest Asian Weekly

Having skimmed, but not read, Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel, “The Kite Runner,” I’m at a loss to say how faithfully the Swiss filmmaker Marc Forster and his American scenarist David Benioff have translated the spirit of the book to the screen. Even in my nodding acquaintance with Hosseini’s prose, I detected a lyricism that defies easy transport. Forster’s film, nonetheless, manages to be mostly good, sometimes very good. At its best, it’s an eye-opening account of displaced Afghans trying to make their way in a foreign society (ours) that has little use for them and no comprehension of their plight.

The movie takes off with a sensational opening-credits sequence, an animated swirl of interlacing Arabic designs in black, tan and pale blue, set to Alberto Iglesias’ pulsating Middle Eastern score, a hypnotic blend of folk instruments and a Western orchestra.

The story begins in 1978 Kabul, when the city was still a lively, cosmopolitan place, before falling into turmoil at the hands of Soviet invaders and, later yet, the Taliban. Two boys, Amir and Hassan, are best friends in spite of their difference in station. Amir’s father, Baba, is a proud intellectual with grand social ambitions; Hassan’s father, a servant, works in Baba’s employ. Some of Benioff’s dialogue, spoken in Dari, then translated back to us in English subtitles, seems a bit soap-operatic in its explication. It’s planted early on that Amir lacks confidence, due to his mother’s death in childbirth and his subsequent chilly relationship with his stern father: “He hates me because I killed her,” Amir says. Sure enough, when tested, Amir fails to act. He witnesses Hassan being assaulted in an ethnically motivated attack, and he does nothing.

The scene of Hassan’s molestation by another boy has been much publicized. What has been less talked about up to this point is the brilliance of Forster’s staging. The director relies on power of suggestion and quick editing to convey the rape of Hassan. The most radical element may be the reaction shot of Amir, who’s crouched at a distance, unable to move. Zekiria Ebrahimi, the child who plays Amir, is merely adequate for much of his role, yet in this moment, he expertly shows every conflicting emotion in his face — his guilt at not making an effort, as well as the shock of the taboo.

By contrast, Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, as Hassan, is consistently spellbinding. After the rape, when Amir, in projecting his sense of shame onto the victim, repeatedly pelts pomegranates at Hassan, the red juice splattering like blood on his pale gray shirt, Mahmoodzada renders Hassan’s stoic acceptance of this as utterly natural. This novice performer has such inner radiance (He’s quite plain in appearance) that in the second half of “Kite Runner,” when he’s completely off-screen, the memory of his presence dominates what transpires after — a rare achievement for an actor.

The midsection of “Kite Runner” rightly belongs to Homayoun Ershadi’s Baba. The action shifts to 1988 Fremont, Calif., where Amir and Baba have immigrated after the loss of Afghanistan to Russian troops in 1979. The once imperious Baba has been reduced to working, behind a sheath of bullet-proof glass, as a convenience store clerk. Ershadi understatedly plays these scenes with a dignity that is heartbreaking to behold. Watching this, the scales dropped from my eyes. I thought back on the Middle Eastern men in menial jobs that I saw throughout the 1980s and ’90s, and how it never occurred to me that they might have been “important” people in their home countries.

Forster’s beautifully inconclusive ending takes place in a Berkeley, Calif., park, where the adult Amir tries to interest an impassive youth in the joys of kite-flying. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the final scene to Brian De Palma’s Vietnam film, “Casualties of War.” In that, a young Vietnamese woman tells a traumatized American veteran, who has followed her into a Bay Area park, “You had a bad dream. It’s over now, I think.”

Forster sets “Kite Runner’s” present-day scenes in 2000, stopping short of the novel’s venture into the post-Sept. 11 climate. In doing so, the director gives a happy ending to those who want one. But at the same time, by letting the tragedy to come linger outside the frame (and with it, the anti-Islamic backlash), he implies a greater truth — for survivors of war, the bad dream never really ends.

“The Kite Runner” opens Dec. 14 at the Guild 45th Theatre, 2115 N. 45 St., Seattle. For showtimes, call 206-781-5755.

N.P. Thompson can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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