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Jill
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« Reply To This #7 on: January 13, 2008, 07:30:21 AM » |
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I just went to see the movie, The Kite Runner. The story centered on the relationship between two childhood friends whose lives were inextricably tied together, set mostly in Kabul, Afghanistan. I thought it was absolutely superlative, though it was incredibly wrenching, at times. It almost hurt. Now that I think about it, there was no almost about it; it did hurt.
No, I haven’t read the book yet, and I suppose it’s possible that if I had, I wouldn’t have responded to the movie as I did, but it’s really hard to imagine that I wouldn’t have still thought it was really masterfully done.
For me, the main thing that determines whether I’m going to like a movie or not is whether or not the movie makes me “care” about what’s happening to the people in the story. Did I ever care with this one! The two little boys who played the parts of the main protagonists during their childhoods seemed so perfect. One I fell absolutely in love with for the sweetness of his looks, for the little kid (and big kid) struggles that his genetic make-up destined him to live with. The other, I grew to love for the apparent purity of his being and his funny-looking, so very earnest and “true” persona.
Another thing that makes a difference for me, sometimes, in whether I’m going to like a movie or not ** besides the question of whether it makes me feel, is whether or not the movie makes me think – whether it opens up my mind to things I hadn’t known or maybe, wouldn’t have thought about, but for the movie -- whether it makes me reflect on some of those “bigger issues” in life. Kite Runner had me on that score, too.
It was especially fun for me, because one of my earlier posts in the Pakistani featured country thread referred to an annual Kite Festival that they hold there, and I posted a couple of pics along with. Truth was that I didn’t know and hadn’t thought any more about it but for the tiny bit I posted. I just liked the idea of kites – because it brought back happy little kid memories for me of times with my family and a bunch of the kids in the neighborhood – when neighborhoods were still (real) neighborhoods.
Not surprisingly, given the title to the movie, I got this really great and wonderfully palatable cinematic introduction to both Pakistani and Afghan culture—at least, but not only related to the significance and celebration of kite-flying in the two countries. It was pretty neat.
Once again, I had reason to think about and feel grateful for how much Kiva ( KivaFriends) has enhanced both my knowledge and my feeling of connection with these other countries. As it happens, and I’ve said this before, that feeling of connection, in certain cases, whether with people in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or in Kenya, etc. has proven to be very much a mixed blessing—for the worry and anguish that often accompany it.
One last thing. The Taliban, in this movie, were portrayed as being especially heinous, as being absolutely and totally beyond redemption. I hated them, and they scared the ---- out of me, to the point where I could never imagine having the courage that Greg Mortenson has to have to be willing to be anywhere close to where they may be conducting their nefarious activities.
As I have this really really strange mind (tell us something that we don’t know, Jill), I found myself thinking about what has become almost a personal mantra for me – that is, that it is totally unfair and unreasonable, ever, to make judgments, all-inclusive declarations about the members of any one group or another—that everybody is an individual and needs to be “judged”, regarded on an individual basis. With the Taliban, I found myself wondering whether or not I might have come upon the exception that proves the rule, or whether this might be but another of the frightening countless instances where I have been the subject of so much government and corporate self-interest-generated manipulation that I am absolutely unable to differentiate the reality from the propaganda.
There’s probably hardly anyone who will have waded all the way through this post to be able, even, to see the question, but in case there is one or two of you who has, I’m wondering,
Do you think it’s possible that every member of the Taliban, given their own indoctrination and belief system, that every one of them is as horrible as we’ve been “educated” to fear that they are? I really don’t know.
** That is, if I’m not going just for pure fun escapist pleasure – which, as it happens, being a movie-lover, I often do. With those kinds, I especially like the sappy ones with happy endings.
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