A still from the movie - The Kite Runner
Marc Foster directed 2007 American drama film, "The Kite Runner" is based on the famous novel by Khaled Hussaini. The film won the positive reviews from the critics and box-office success. This is quite a fascinating thing about American audience that they always appreciate and enjoy other's suffering, and later put their Army as saviors. However, the present film doesn't have a single American savior; here, the American ideals come to rescue.
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The film is a story of a young Afghani refugee who settles in America and becomes a writer. Because of the novelist protagonist, many people have seen the autobiographical elements in the novel, which Hosseni has always denied. Taliban's ban on Kite flying was one of the motivating factors for Hussaini[1] as he found such ban "unusually cruel". Interstingly, such a good, thoughtful, and creative person did not find killing of thousands of innocent people cruel and did not instigate him to write something, the ban on kite flying did.
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Coming back to film, like novel, it also remains a story of redemption. Young Amir and his servant boy Hassan were constant comapnion; they played together all the time. Amir used to fly the kites, Hassan used to run and catch kites for him, and decidely always ready to do so, which was reiterated in the movie twice. Amir used to read to Hassan his favorite story 'Rustom and Sohrab'. At that young age, Amir used to write stories. Now, apart from the master-servant relationship, there was one more dichotomy: Hassan was a Hazara boy, an ethnic group which is politically and statistically in minority as compared to Pashtuns.
This enimosity of Pashtun towards Hazara is captured ambiguously in the movie. Assef confronts Amir once becasuse of his constant compaionship with a Hazara boy. Second time, Assef confronts Hassan, telling him that he is nothing but a servant of Amir. And to teach him a lesson, he even rapes Hassan. Amer witnessed this event, but he did not even try to confront Assef and his two friends. But, his attitude towards Hassan changes. At one time, he hits Hassan with pomegrenates and askd Hassan to do the same, which he denied. Amer calls him coward. But, as we could notice in the movie, in the first confrontation with Assef, it was Hassan who confronted and saved. In fact, Amir should have helped Hassan when he was confronted by Amir and his troop. Hassan wasn't a coward; he knew he was a servant, and consequently, he always treated Amir as a master.
The adult Amir returns to Kabul to rescue the son of Hassan, Sohrab. But, is he really there to save a Hazara child? Is he really there to rescue the son of hischildhood freind and servant, Hassan? Or he is there becasue nowhe knows that Hassan was his illicit brother and Sohrab is his nephew. This question doesn't get an aswer in the narrative of the film. But, if it was just for his childhood friendship's sake, then there was no need of the 'illicit child' drama. So, implicitly narrative tells us that he is there to rescue his nephew and nothing more. Previous both the dichotomies of Master-Servant and Majority-Minority ethnic groups are nullified in the name of nephew.
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The representation of Muslims is very interesting here. There are rich muslims, there are poor muslims, there muslims who are refugees in America and there are muslims who are refugees in Pakistan. There are Muslims in Kabul before and after the Taliban, and of course, there is an invokation of Sharia. The upper class diplomat muslim, father of Amir, Agha Sahib, is progressive and hence takes drinks. He was never shown in traditional Kabuli or Pashtun attire. He had an illicit relationship with his servant's wife. He is a good person; takes care of everyone, including servant and servant's son. The mark of open mindedness is the attire, drinking, and sexual liberty.
General Taheri, though in American and always in Western attire, distates the writing as an art form. Pakistan's area is shown which was primarily a refugee ghetto from Kabul, and you see all kinds of filth, the heads of goats and cows were shown. This creates a dichotomy in terms of refugees in Pakistan and American. But, it doesn't highlight the fact that American doesn't give visa on humanitarin grounds; the qualified and rich people could manage to get through. While those who couldn't had to stay in Pakistan. It is a deliberate mis-representation of a space, symbolizing it as a religious and ethnic reality.
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The film shows one thing quite realistically is the advent of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism comes on the shoulders of corruption. The top level leaders are fundamentalists, and they get support from the fundamentalist foot-soldiers. But, there is a huge gap between them, the intermediary level of leaders and officers - they are not necessarily the fundamentalists. They are primarily the opportunists. They take advantage of the situation and earn out of it. This is where the corruption flourishes. This is shown quite clearly in the movie.
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There is bad Soviet Army destroying a happy state of Afghanistan. There brutalities are not very elaborately shown; it was just implied in one scene where a Soviet Private asks for the sexual favors from a Pashtun woman to let all pass through. There is evil Taliban. There evil side is more talked about and once shown. They check beard and attire of the people. They kill who ever confronts them. They do lot of atrocities. By using Sharia, they killed a couple by pelting stones because they commited adultery. But, at the same time, it is reported in the film that they took young girls and boys for their personal pleasure. In fact, Sohrab was also kept for the same purposes. This is not considered adultery for them, which gives the message that religiousity is a mask to rule the people. The Talibans do not follow the religious obedience which they expect from the people.
The most important aspect is America is clearly missing. Who supported Taliban? Who provided them with weapons? American is missing because for both the questions, the answer is 'America' [2]. So here, the American ideals of the protagonist becomes important. He is, now, a better person because he has got refuse in America; he has got education in American. His fight for and rescuing Sohrab is possible because of his ability to clearly distinguish right and wrong.
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It is the master's kite and servant is running to fetch it back. Once in-a-while, the master runs to fetch the kite for servant and that becomes the poetic justice. It is not necessary that Pashtun will remain the masters and Hazara will be the servants. Both may become servant to fetch the kites for Masters. At times, masters are invisible to make us believe that we are independent to fly our own kites. The invisibility of some masters, both in fictional narratives and real world, are their strength.
Notes:
1. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2005-04-18-kite-runner_x.htm (Retrieved on 02 May, 2020).
2. cf. Fahrenheit 9-11. 2004. (Di.) Michael Moor.
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