I just finally finished reading “The Kite Runner” and what a wonderful book abut family, redemption and forgiveness. I do however fear that the film could fall into major third act hurdles, something the trailer has indeed hinted at.
The running for you life bit as guns fire toward the end of the trailer make it seem like the film will take a little bit of an action film route, this is just not something that happened in the story or what it is about. You kind of get the feeling that the studio got involved asking Forster to beef up the action (thinking an audience would not go and sit through a movie about Afghans with no gun fire) which could cause major narrative problems.
This is something I thought when I finished the book, and something that I have just read in advance reviews. The third act of the film stumbles.
Lets hope there is still a little bit of editing going on and fine tuning, as this is a story that deserves to be told. We do not get to hear a lot how the Taliban treat their own people, and how things actually are for people in Afghanistan. We usually just get this one portrait of its people painted for us, some newscaster saying “This is the face of evil” while a bearded man wearing a turban stares out from the picture in the right hand corner.
I do still hold high hopes for the film though. It would be very upsetting for those involved to mess up a film that is so important for westerners to see.
I have hope that Khalid Abdalla will be as wonderful as I know he can in the very complex and emotionally rich role of Amir.
I have no doubts about how good Homayon Ershadi (pictured below) will be as Baba, a generous man of courage and wealth who was held in the highest esteem in his homeland but who now lives in America and is tormented by his past. Shaun Toub should also be impressive as Baba’s best friend and holder of secrets Rahim Kahn.
Whether or not these actors will be embraced by the Academy is another story. AMPAS have just recently started embracing black actors. I think it may be some time before they start to embrace actors from the Middle East (or China, or Japan, or India……yadda yadda yadda) especially since we are still at war.
Then again they embraced the wonderful Shohreh Aghdashloo for “House of Sand and Fog” so things could be beginning to change there as well (then again they made her sit there and loose to Reene Zellweger…..the humilty!) The Academy is getting slowly younger and more racially and culturally mixed and that is a good thing especially for more inventive films and non white actors….it is not mixed up enough to grant a gay cowboy love story it’s Oscar, but maybe in another 20 years.
I will try and have hope that the film is a critical and box-office success and, if deserving, gets rewarded. After all these years and countless Oscar disappointments, I am amazed I still have hope!
Lets just hope I am not let down when I see “The Kite Runner” in the cinema as it will make all this time writing about it and championing it seem like such a waste.
1 comment:
I really hope that the beauty of pre-war Afghanistan shines through as I think the country itself is one of the main characters of this story. I think it is important for Americans to see that this is not just a country of dusty hills and bandits but a once beautiful and rich world. To see how the west and the Taliban has ruined life here is one of the main lessons I learned from reading this book. In many ways the retreat to America is a trip to a lower class way of life and the so-called promiseland is not all it's cracked up to be.
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