i’m ahead of the game for once!
Posted by hema on December 13, 2007
took my kids to see a free educational preview of The Kite Runner today. it went well, apart from all the tears at the end. “that stuff doesn’t really happen does it?” erm..
so, i got to do soemthing before everyone instead of months after!
i’m still only half way through A Thousand Splendid Suns!
hema's sphere 
mishymoshy said
Awwwww why didn’t you take me??? I’m a student. Pfft.
Shahrzad said
A Thousand Splendid Suns is not as good as the Kite Runner. Just i didnt like the end of the story. It was strangely happy. I just remembered Indian movies.. My idea..
The Kite Runner was something else really, great book..
Snowdrops said
I haven’t read the kite runner yet. Though I have read A thousand Splendid Suns. I can’t wait to watch the movie ‘The Kite Runner’ even though I know not much about it.
hema said
mishy- oh i forgot about you, i was raoming around manchester afterwards wondering what to do. i went to the uni and pretending to be a student for a bit!
sharzad- the ending of a thousand splendid suns was happy? did we read the same book? (i just finished it, found something to do today after all)
snowy-it’s a good film. the little boy who plays Hassan is so cute.
half of it’s in persian though (is it persian?) with subtitles.
Shahrzad said
The end of a thousand splendid suns, really seemed such an indian movie for me. The subject also was not new. And he didnt tell a new story. Like all books which are about unfortunate women of wars spc in a country like Afqanistan. Story is also long and boring. And ye, the Happy end made me very sick! 😦
Clu: I didnt like a thousand splendid suns. I like kite runner..
just a temporary measure said
aww i wanna see it, was it as good as the book?? i finished thousand splendid suns a few weeks ago it was very sad,i think they’re both good in different ways..
mishymoshy said
Oooh I’m glad its in Persian (or whatever they speak), it’ll make it more authentic than everyone having American accents. I heard the people who acted in it though didn’t get paid very well and there’s a petition doing the rounds against it. They only got 10k which is pennies for such a big film.
People want to hear more about the film so do a review please!
hema said
shahrzad- i guess in some ways they were happy, but their happiness came at an expense. i felt more sorry for miriam all the way through.
jtm- was it as good as the book? erm..it was very true to the book, they hardly cut anything out. they missed out the cleft lip part altogether, which i thought was quite important to the story.
mishy- i read that about the wages. i’m not sure what i thinkof it though, because they got paid a lot more than the average for an afghani film.
i delibrately didn’t do a review because i know most people haven’t seen it yet. but it was interesting watching it with non Muslim students who hadn’t read the book and had little knowledge of the background to afganistan.
most of them came out of the film crying and were able to identify with the univesal emotions like love and loss, etc, and they were very inquisitive about the war and background.so i guess in that sense, the film served its purpose. i think the story is really targeted at a general western audience.
mishymoshy said
Ok…write one. We can choose whether or not to read it. Or you can write one and email it to me so that I’m the only one that has access to it and then I can brag about it.
I’m bored. I’m supposed to be reading abut whether or not financial markets are efficient but I just can’t focus :s
Btw I see your point about the actors earning more than the average for an Afghani film but this isn’t an Afghani film. Its funded by a major Hollywood studio and as it is a book adaptation, it already has an audience it does not need to attract and so is set to make a profit which the actors will never see. Seeing as they make the film what it is they should be rewarded appropriately before their roles consist of nothing more than “stereotypical bomber #2”.
Ach, why can’t I type this easily about Fama’s damn ramblings?? You smell Hema.
hema said
heeyy it’s not my fault you can’t do your essay. i would write a review especially for you(!) but you have work to do and i don’t want to distract you:)
plus there is one here you can read:
http://uniquemuslimah.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/uniques-film-review-of-the-kite-runner-ii/
i don’t see why they didn’t just use professional actors instead of using locals, who weren’t equipped to deal with the fame and backlash from the controversial rape scene. apprently they are in hiding.
i’ll do my favourite quotes form the novel instead. do yours if you really want to avpid work!
“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”
“the problem . . . was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little”
“Amir agha and I are friends,” Hassan said. He loooked flushed.
“Friends?” Assef said, laughing. “You pathetic fool! Someday you’ll wake up from your little fantasy and learn just how good of a friend he is.”
“Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish custom but abhor rules. And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck”
“I dream that lawla flowers will bloom in the streets of Kabul again and rubab music will play in the samovar houses and kites will fly in the skies. And I dream that someday you will return to Kabul to revisit the land of our childhood. If you do, you will find an old faithful friend waiting for you”
“There is only one sin. And that is theft . . . When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. Hadn’t he said those words to me? And now, fifteen years after I’d buried him, I was learning that Baba had been a thief. And a thief of the worst kind, because the things he’d stolen had been sacred ”
“I sat on a bench near a willow tree and watched a pair of kites soaring in the sky. I thought about something Rahim Khan said just before he hung up, almost as an afterthought, ‘There is a way to be good again.'”
“Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors”
“And suddenly Hassan’s voice whispered in my head: For you a thousand times over”
ymiss said
I’m actually scared about watching this film. the book had me in tears esp since the most horrific scene was at childhood.
“Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors”
One of my favourite lines from the book too!
mishymoshy said
Thanks for that link! That’s a good blog that is.
ProjectNur.com said
Its a good book.