Movies Seen

The Kite Runner is an interesting movie for many reasons. Let me tell you about some reasons I have to like it. Amazing what a translation can do: in Brazil it is called  “ O Caçador de Pipas.” I will  the tiltle to talk about my perceptions and feelings about this movie. Although, screen time is dedicated to the kite flyer (the boy who grows up is the US and goes back to his homeland later), I think the story is about the kite runner (the boy who stays behind). I saw it as a story of unrequited  friendship (if that is the term for it) like the one portrayed by Oscar Wilde in the Devoted Friend. The kite runner made me think about catering to the needs of others. I was touched seeing his gift for helping, his courage to face life’s hardships to help his friend. His enthusiasm in face of the hidden beauties of life, the beauty that lies behind the smallest things and beneath the routines of daily life. I think it is a dichotomy of two approaches to dealing with life and people. The kite flyer is always asking “What would do for me?” and the kite runner is asking/perceiving “What can I do for you?”

This movie directed by Susanne Bier is an interesting drama. The story of a woman who loses her husband and has to deal with this loss. This is one of the themes: dealing with loss, mourning. It amazed me to see how she dealt with her husband’s death and “resurrection”   through remembering how he was, the kind of person he used to be, what he liked, people who knew him. It is touching to see that to deal with her husband’s loss she invites his drug addicted best friend to live with her mourning family.

It is a process of discovery for her to see that her husband had reasons to trust and be dependent on that man that she did not think was worth of much value and did not deserve so much consideration. It is painful for her to see that despite loving her husband and feeling loved in return, she was not the only repository of his trust and his love.

It made me think how we are tempted to think that romantic love solves it all and it is the answer to everything. Once we are romantically involved, we think we should share everything, that there should be no secrets and we are enough to each other with friends and relatives gravitating around this perfect union. A second point that called my attention, is that we are so judgmental when we think that people who are going through difficult situations have nothing to give and nothing to lose. The fire, for me at least, represents the fights we have, the misunderstandings that make us lose perspective and not see people as  wholes, as needing things we cannot give or understand.