As a voracious reader, if a book is made into a film, chances are I've read it. Strangely, before seeing The Kite Runner I had not read the best selling novel by Khaled Hosseini. I don't quite know why, whether it was the serious subject matter or just timing, I never got to it. After seeing director Marc Forster's (Finding Neverland) sad but stunning adaptation, the novel now has a prominent place in my stack of bedside reading.
The story begins with young boys flying kites in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1978. Life is fairly peaceful; this is before the Russian invasion, the Taliban, and the war that would turn the country toward anarchy. The Kite Runner focuses on the friendship between a young boy named Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) and Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada), son of the family's servant, Ali (Nabi Tanha). The two boys are virtually inseparable and act like brothers. Though Hassan is the smaller of the two boys, he goes out of his way to protect Amir whenever he has to. Hassan regularly protects Amir from a town bully, Assef (Elham Ehsas), who is jealous of Amir's kite and Hassan's skills as a kite runner. He is able to predict when a kite will return to earth and be there, ready to retrieve it. Hassan is also an easy target for derision because of his status as the son of a servant.
Amir's father Baba is a well-to-do Afghani who has no use for the mullahs. He is an intellectual and a secularist who drives a Mustang and spends his time taking the boys to American movies. While Baba's best friend Rahim Khan (Shaun Toub) wholeheartedly supports Amir's love of literature and writing, Baba remains deeply concerned about his son's inability to fend for himself. Even though Hassan may be hindering his son's emotional growth Baba continues to provide for the boy and his father as though they were his own family.
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