movie review: the kite runner

I watched The Kite Runner Friday night, not knowing anything about it except that it is critically-acclaimed. I would have to agree with them - it was A+. I love movies that give me global perspective, even though that renewed perspective is often accompanied by recognition of my own ignorance. For instance, I didn't know that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in the late 1970s. In fact, I know hardly anything about Afghanistan.

The Kite Runner is the story of two young Afghan boys growing up in the late 1970s, one very wealthy and one very poor, who are first separated emotionally by a horrible injustice and then physically due to political events. After living in the United States for over a decade, privileged Amir is called to go back to his homeland, and once there, finds an amazing chance to help his childhood friend. It is both heartbreaking and joyful, disturbing and beautiful. The acting, music, cinematography, dialogue, everything, was exactly as it needed to be for this story. Each element breathed the film's message, summed best in it's tagline: "There is a way to be good again."

I couldn't help but become attached to these characters and their struggles, unimaginable struggles. It made me angry, and I love to feel angry sometimes, when it's about the right things. And these things really happen. They are the result of the twisted mind of man, hungry for power, fueled with pride, serving self. But with hate comes the opportunity for righteousness to appear, to make things the way they're supposed to be, the way they will one day be, the way God intended them to be. This movie, to me, is a small celebration of that truth!

I would like to read the book one day, but now that I know the story, I am hungry for another by author Khaled Hosseini. So I'm going to check out A Thousand Splendid Suns, his second novel, which tells the story of two Afghan women and how their lives intertwine. It sounds kind of like the "girl" version of The Kite Runner, so that's exciting.

Oh, and I kind of want to fly a kite now. When was the last time any of us did that?