The Kite Runner
May 27th, 2008 by Carlos
The Kite Runner was a best-selling book that millions of people have read and enjoyed. I’m a little late to the bandwagon on this one, although I did try to read Khaled Hosseini’s second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and I didn’t like it.
But M had read it and really really liked it so I knew I was going to watch the movie at some point. It reminded me of Cool Runnings in the sense that it made me cry like a baby. One good thins about the movie is that I expected it to be about something totally different—life in Afghanistan. That’s vague but that’s what I thought going in and I was pleasantly surprised when the plot started to unfold.
Basically, this is a movie about friendship and class struggle. Two boys are best friends but because they belong to a different class, their friendship has to endure some hardships. Throw in a 20-year gap and a war with the Soviets and you’ve got this movie. The way Afghanistan is depicted both before and after the Taliban is heartbreaking: they’ve sucked out all the things that made the country beautiful.
So you’ll notice some quirky things about this review: I used the word beautiful and I admitted I cried. Well, this is that kind of movie. It’s entertaining, sometimes hard to watch, and has a lot of heavy issues going into it. In all, that’s the kind of movie I enjoy—something that punches you in the gut and really makes you feel something. So if that’s the kind of things you like (I always use Requiem for a Dream as an example), then you should definitely check this movie out. Try the book first to see which is better, I’ve already ruined the book for myself.
