The Kite Runner

Having read the bestseller by Khaled Hosseini sometime back, I was looking forward to watch the film to see if it is as good as the book.

It did not disappoint. The beginning sequence where they show the producer, director, film company etc were done in a very arty way, fused with Arabian music, composed by Alberto Iglesias. I got to know this Spanish after watching some of his works including Pedro Almodóvar's films like
Volver, Talk to Her and All about my mother.

Right from the start, I was captivated by the cinematography, which they filmed in China's Xinjiang province that borders Afghanistan.

If you have read my review on the book in one of my earlier post or have read the book, you will know that the story is about the friendship between Amir and Hassan. Amir is the rich, pampered child and Hassan is the servant's son who taught Amir the skills in kite flying and is always there to protect Amir from being bullied. The story is told from Amir's perspective as he relates about the brotherly love between him and Hassan, the war that break out in Kabul - his hometown, and the relationship between him and his father.

I think the most important message the story wants to put across is in the tagline "There is a way to be good again". Amir did something wrong and tries to be good again to redeem when he had wrongly done.

The child actors are all first time actors and the young Hassan is really commendable for his performance that he won a best young actor award in the Critics Choice Award. Due to a controversy scene in the movie, DreamWorks, the American studio that financed the film, postponed its release date for a month so that the child actors and their families could be moved to Dubai. Under the movie deal, the studio is also paying for the child actors education till a certain age if I remember correctly.

Read a trivia that in many of the kite flying shots, the children were actually pulling balloons and the kites were added in post-production.

The movie is directed by Marc Forster, a german who also did Finding Neverland which I enjoyed. He will also be directing the next Bond film Quantum of Solace, quite exciting to see new directors coming up and producing good quality films.