THE KITE RUNNER

Didn’t read the book.

Sorry. Heard great things about it, and was told not to see the movie until I read the book. But, I didn’t read the book and I just saw the movie.

It’s another unbelievable story. Fantastical. More fable than reality.

And yet the realistic aspects are mostly well done and the fantastic elements are acceptable because it is written (as I assume the book was) lyrically, more like a poem than an essay, on the horrors of prejudice and bullying, of war and brutality, of honor and cowardice and love—and the ultimate unfairness of any form of blind faith and total power.

But it’s a beautiful story, despite the unlikely coincidences and escapes from certain death that occur as in a children’s story, which it also deeply is.

I accepted all those obvious devices as I would fourteen lines in a sonnet. It seemed true to the form of the fable, and because it was so nicely done.

I was moved several times to tears, or at least moist eyes, despite the obviousness of its devices, or maybe at times because of them.

And thanks to competent directing and acting. The best done by Homayoun Ershadi as “Baba”—the father.

Over all, an accomplishment, to be applauded, which I do.