Over the summer of 2007, one of the things I wanted to do was catch up on my reading. I ended up reading seven books in the span of 3 months. One of them was The Kite Runner. If I hadn't read the original Godfather over the summer time, I would say that it was the best book I read out of all the books I read. But since I read The Godfather, this book comes in a very close second. When I heard about the film coming out as a PG-13 film, I was kind of curious as to how they would show the most controversial and brutal scene. I'm talking about the rape scene (for those who have read the book, you know what I'm talking about. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't). At first, I heard they were going to cut the scene out of the film because of how graphic it was and the MPAA, being the dumbshits they are, wouldn't give it the rating unless that scene was cut. But then the film would have not really made sense to people who haven't read the book. Luckily, they were able to keep it in and make it intense but not overdo the graphic content.
For those who haven't read the book, the story follows two boys growing up in Afghanistan in the 1970's. One is named Amir and the other is Hassan. They are the best of friends and do anything and everything together. Amir writes stories and reads stories to Hassan to entertain him. The boys go to the movies a lot and their favorite actor is Steve McQueen. After the Russian Invasion, the families of Hassan and Amir go their separate routes. It was mainly Hassan and his father who wanted to leave because they wanted to be away from the chaos the Russians have caused. Jump ahead to 2000. Amir is a successful writer and just had a new book published. He receives a phone call from an old friend of his saying that he needs to come back to Afghanistan. The things he thought were taken care of were not and he needs to return to fix them.
This is pretty much my summary of the story without giving too much away. I highly recommend the book to anyone. It was the first novel by Khaled Hosseini and it really puts even the bravest man in tears. Even though it's a fictional novel, Hosseini writes like it really happened. There is so much power and so much emotion in his writing. I can see him as the next great author. The book, released in 2003, is already required for some Butte College and Chico State reading courses. It is one of the best books you will ever read.
As for the movie, I was impressed with how close they followed the book. It is almost an exact scene for scene translation. Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) did an excellent job of casting real Afghanistan actors for this film and using their languages, such as Dari (I think that's what it's called) and Farsi, for the film. However, in the end, they change the final scene around. It doesn't screw up the narration of the film but it would have been better if they kept the original ending. The people that have read the book probably know what I'm talking about. All in all, very well done. Not quite as amazing as the book but still a good film. The actors all perform well in their roles and I'm glad Forster did it this way than having regular Hollywood actors and not using the original language.
Rating: 3.5 (out of 4)
PS. I hope Peter Jackson doesn't mess up The Lovely Bones. I'm reading the book right now and it's damn good so far. And also, There Will Be Blood looks fucking awesome. It's coming to the Pageant soon and when it does, I will be there to watch it opening day and my review will be up afterwards.
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