Anguish in Afghanistan

>> The Kite Runner is a slick melodrama and
the cinematic controversy of the year

STRIFE WITH A STUDIO SHEEN: The Kite Runner

by MATTHEW HAYS

By the time of its release this month, just in time for Oscar consideration, the latest film from Marc Forster had already become the cinematic controversy of the year.

Based on the bestseller of the same name, The Kite Runner is the story of two young boys in Afghanistan, one an aristocrat, the other the son of a servant, who bond over kite flying. The action takes place in a pre-civil-war-torn Afghanistan, but Forster shows us glimpses of class- and race-born strife that will be part of the country’s ultimate undoing. But the sequence that has drawn the most talk occurs when one of the boys is attacked and raped by a group of bullies. The other boy, a member of the upper class, witnesses the rape of his friend, but is too cowardly to intervene. Forster does his best not to make the scene too sensational, but it’s intensely disturbing nonetheless.

The scene has terrible ramifications for the characters and their fate. There is a flight from Afghanistan for the aristocrat and his father, who flee to the United States. But the other controversy for The Kite Runner would arrive when the young actors who appeared in the rape sequence would claim that they weren’t properly prepared for such a scene. The folks behind the film have paid for their relocating to another country outside of Afghanistan, acknowledging that being involved with such a project could have serious ramifications.

Controversy aside, The Kite Runner is a slick movie. It’s got solid performances and better-than-good production values. It’s impossible not to feel for the kids in the movie—who couldn’t?—but, having said all that, this is a Forster film. He’s the man who brought us Monster’s Ball, a movie that told us that a diehard racist (Billy Bob Thornton) could get over his deep-felt hatred of black people simply by tasting one of Halle Berry’s most private parts. It was grossly and irritatingly simplistic.

The Kite Runner is a beautifully told story, but one gets the sense that Forster has given the book a studio sheen, one that doesn’t always sit right with the source material.

The Kite Runner opens this
Friday, Dec. 21

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