Eclectic Cast Helps "Kite Runner" Soar

By Nancy Ramsey

Not long after landing the lead role of Amir in "The Kite Runner," Khalid Abdalla set out for Afghanistan. His previous movie role was that of a hijacker in Paul Greengrass's "United 93," a role he initially hesitated to accept since he feared it would be yet another Hollywood stereotype of Arabs. But the critical acclaim he received and, more important, the support of the families who lost loved ones on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania on 9/11 had laid those fears to rest.

Still, he wanted to get his role of Amir right. So the 27-year-old actor hired a driver, and together the two traveled throughout the land of haunting, rugged beauty. Abdalla canvassed Kabul, seeking out the houses and streets of the novel. He became fluent in Dari; he ate dishes people had warned would make him sick (they didn't) and learned to fly a kite with local kids.

Abdalla spent a month there, and he talks not of a land ravaged by the Soviet invasion, peopled by religious extremists and terrorists, but of its "wonderful, warm, open, hospitable people." Articulate and well-read (Abdalla studied at Cambridge University), he becomes emotional when speaking of Afghanistan. "It would have been absurd for me not to go," he says.

Abdalla grew up in London, the son of two doctors who emigrated from Egypt. He describes his family as "well integrated," but adds, "I know what it feels like to be misrepresented and how much it hurts."

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Photos: "The Kite Runner" Premiere

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One day, after an elaborate kite flying ritual that runs through Kabul's labyrinth of streets, Hassan is raped by some neighborhood (Pashtun) bullies. Amir fails to defend his friend, and later betrays him in scenes that are heartbreaking. (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, a nonprofessional actor cast in Kabul, plays Hassan. Writing in the New York Times, Karen Durbin called his performance "so quietly powerful that his Hassan ranks among the great child performances on film.") That betrayal will haunt Amir long after he and his father have fled Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion and settled in California.

The storyline is fiction, but Hosseini shares much of his early life with Amir. "We went to the same school, we're both precocious writers, we flew kites, we loved film. We became immigrants to the United States. You cannot write novels out of an emotional vacuum."

Hosseini left Afghanistan in 1976 with his family when his father, a diplomat, was posted to Paris. But before the four-year posting was up, the Soviets invaded and the family resettled in California. (Hosseini would not return until 2003; he still lives in California.) His memory of Afghanistan is one of "a country at peace for most of the 20th century. I never saw tanks, I never saw rockets being shot."

One of his fondest memories is, not surprisingly, of running kites. It was "a rite of passage," he says. "We had a huge reserve of time during our winter vacation. We had all winter off because it was too difficult to trek far to school because of the cold and the snow."

It was important to Hosseini that the film version of his novel capture what's unique to Afghanistan and not be set against "a generic Middle East backdrop. Thankfully, Marc [Forster] went to great lengths to ensure this." When they first met, Forster (who directed "Stranger than Fiction," "Monster's Ball" and "Neverland") told the author that the scenes in Kabul should be in Dari, not English.

"If I were a studio executive in Hollywood, this would not be something I'd want to hear," laughs Hosseini.

For the role of Baba, Amir's father, Forster chose Homayoun Ershadi, an Iranian actor who lives in Tehran and Vancouver. Ershadi, trained not as an actor but an architect, first gained the foreign-film spotlight when he played the lead in Abbas Kiarostami's "The Taste of Cherry," which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival in 1996.

Ershadi recalls having read "The Kite Runner" and loving it. Iranian and Afghan cultures have enough similarities that he was comfortable playing an Afghan. "When I was reading the book, I saw myself in Baba," he says. "He's a proud man, as I am; a peaceful man, as I am; and confident. And I love my son, I love my daughter, but I can't always show them."

The film was shot in Kashgar, in western China, which a location scout called "a kind of Lonely Planet's greatest hits." The boys who played the young Amir (Zekiria Ebrahimi) and Hassan came from Kabul. After shooting ended, they returned home.

But controversy began to swirl about how the rape scene would be received by their fellow Afghans. Although the film has not and will not be released officially in Afghanistan, word of mouth led some to wonder whether it would bring shame on the entire Hazara and therefore violent reprisals. One politician suggested that Hazara and Pashtun "would be killing each other every night," while another said it would energize the Taliban.

Consequently, the film's U.S. opening was delayed until the boys finished school and could be safely taken out of Afghanistan. Earlier this month, they were flown, along with their guardians, to the United Arab Emirates, where they will be resettled at the expense of Paramount Pictures.

Both Abdalla and Ershadi wish the young actors could join them in New York and Los Angeles, as they open the film and talk with the press. Both say they are satisfied with "The Kite Runner" and its depiction of Afghan society, and honored to have been part of it.

Abdalla views the story's dynamic energy on a par with a Greek tragedy. He draws parallels between the storyline and the Soviets' invasion of Afghanistan and the way the world ignored the country after their withdrawal. The scene when Hassan is raped, he acknowledges, is "crucial. It's that moment in which someone watches someone else being abused, and can't, or doesn't, do anything about it. It's that mixture of complicity and neglect. Hassan is Afghanistan."

By Nancy Ramsey