the movieGOOMBA

What's kind of annoying to me is when a genuinely good book gets exploited by blockbuster hype. There it was, a little known, well written novel with its humble cover; tucked away at the bottom corner of the fiction section. Then, someone else in Hollywood realizes what a great book it is and rapes all the dignity from it. Suddenly its a New York Times best seller, its classy matte cover replaced is by a glossy photo of the movie poster. And now, when you re-read the book, the characters suddenly look like the actors who had portrayed them. It can be quite awful to a true book fan. The good thing is, it can get more people to read a book that might have been left forgotten, but it simultaneously makes it trendy, an undesierable characteristic to many.

So The Kite Runner is a novel turned film about Amir and his best childhood friend Hassan during a time when Kabul was still peaceful. The difference is, I didn't think the book was all that fantastic. Different in class and race, Amir and Hassan struggle with the societal convention that decided the unlikelihood of their friendship. Then, one day, something changes their life paths forever, and it takes almost a lifetime for Amir to make amends with his ghosts of the past.

Usually, when novels are altered for the silver screen, screenwriters adapt the story to visually make the story flow smoothly and to trim the plot of story fat. However, in this instance, they kept everything. Nothing was changed, and in my opinion, to the film's detriment. I didn't enjoy the novel, and I didn't really enjoy the film. In both mediums, I never felt that Amir's guilt was ever amended. Even as he risks his life to save Hassan's son, there was always some part of me that didn't believe that he did it for Hassan and Sohrab. I felt he kind of did it selfishly - so that he wouldn't have to feel guilty anymore, and I feel horrible for thinking that. I feel so judgmental.

In regard to the actual performance of the actors. The young Hassan and Amir (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada and Zekeria Ebrahimi respectively) were fantastic. Their friendship was alive and real. Khalid Abdalla brought humility and a quiet modesty to Amir that I didn't see in the novel. However, other than the performances and learning about a culture I know little about, I thought the plot was quite anticlimactic and plain.

Beautiful though a story is about a childhood filled with innocent kite flying and savoring pomegranates underneath a trees, the beauty lies only in the idea. Its not in this story.