Movie Review

Based on the book by Kaled Hosseini, directed by Marc Forster, starring: Zekeria Ebrahimi (young Amir), Ahmed Khan Mamoodzada (young Hassan), Nabi Tanba (Ali), Elham Ehsas (young Assef), Homayoun Ershadi (Baba), Atassa Leoni (Saroya), Shaun Toub (Rahim Khan), Khalid Abdella (Amir), Dialogue is in English, Dari, Pashtu, Urdu, Russian; 128 Minutes; 2007.

Young Amir and Hassan are childhood friends in Kabul, Afghanistan. It is an unusual relationship because Hassan's father Ali is the servant of Amir’s father, Baba. Hassan is a member of the lower class Hassari and Amir is upper class Pashtun. As happens with many children they are blind to differences when they are young but social status becomes a factor as they grow older.

In the popular sport of kite running, Hassan has an uncanny ability to run down opponents' kites that have been cut from their strings. In one contest Hassan runs down the kite of Assef a fierce rival to Amir and sworn enemy of Hassan. On one occasion Hassan threatened to blind Assaf with his slingshot if he harmed his friend Amir. On the occasion when he finds Assaf's downed kite for his friend Amir, Assaf and his gang descend on Hassan and he is raped in an alley. This act is observed by Amir but out of fear he does not intervene and runs away in shame and fear.

Amir has long feared that his father, Baba, loves the servant Hassan more than him because Hassan is vigorous and sporting whereas Amir is more effete and enjoys writing. Amir is encouraged in his writing by his father's close friend Rahim Khan. But, as the saying goes "We find it impossible to forgive those whom we have wronged" and Amir frames Hassan for stealing. Hassan falsely confesses and Baba forgives him. Even so, out of honour Ali and Hassan move away.

After the Russian invasion, Amir and Baba flee, first to Pakistan and then to Freemont California where there is a significant expat Afghani population. He marries Soraya, daughter of a former Afghan General and pursues life as a writer until out of the blue he hears from his old mentor Rahim Khan who calls him back to Pakistan with the words "There is a way to do good again."

In Pakistan, Amir discovers that his old friend Hassan is dead but that Hassan's child is in an orphanage in Kabul. The director of the orphanage tells him that a Taliban leader often takes children from the orphanage in return for money for the degrading purpose of sexually abusing them. This official turns out to be Amir's old nemesis Ali, and he indeed has Sorab, the child of his friend Hassan. In the process of rescuing Sorab, Amir is badly beaten but they escape when Sorab blinds Ali with a slingshot, fulfilling his father's threat from childhood. In a stunning revelation Amir learns that Hassan was also the child of his father Baba and that they are half brothers.

Amir is finally able to take an emotionally damaged Sorab back to the US where in a final scene as they fly a kite together he is able to elicit a glimmer of a smile from him, a very faint sign of hope for the future. The Christian Doctrine of the Atonement is a complex notion. There are several metaphors used to try and explain its mechanics: Rescue, Substitution/ Sacrifice and Exemplar. In this story "the way to be good again" is through a dramatic and costly Rescue in which Amir makes up for his childhood cowardice and shame by plucking his nephew from the Hell of his confinement at the hands of a Taliban sadist and "bringing him home."