The Kite Runner Book Vs. Movie by Raoul Khouri

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is the most real book I have ever read. Every page was organic and stayed true to the sadness of the life of a Kabul man. After reading the book I was scared to see the movie because I did not want to see the vivid scenes such as the stoning of the man and women, or the rapping of Hassan. After watching the movie, I was relieved. I believe that the producers of the movie did a good job making the movie realistic and true to Khaled Hosseini’s story line, while still making it not overly gruesome. But I do believe that the producers of the movie did not do a good job of making a connection between the reader and the characters of story.

            Like most books that are turned into movies, The Kite Runner lost many specific details. Most of these details for The Kite Runner were not important to the storyline; however, they helped build a connection between the reader and the characters. For example, in the movie interpretation many of the scenes, when Amir is living in America are cut out in order to save time. Never the less, those scenes help us see Amir’s transition to becoming a man. They also help the reader create a connection with Amir.  On the other hand, the producers of the movie had to make a movie that was under two and a half hours. In order to achieve this the producers had to cut out parts of the story. My personal opinion is that the authors made a good decision on the scenes that they chose to cut out because they stayed true to the story and still achieved some of the emotional connection with the characters.

            Even though the producers of the movie stayed true to the story line of the book, they did cut out a few critical scenes that I found important to the story line. For example the producers cut out the entire immigration and adoption problem, which leads to Sohrab’s suicide attempt, which is also cut out. I do not believe that Sohrab’s suicide attempt should have been cut out of the movie because it shows the sadness of the story. By cutting out the scenes the story loses its organic nature. Never the less, the movie was true to many other parts of the book and still achieved a sad and real story.

            Overall, the story of The Kite Runner is an amazing story no matter on which medium. I believe that the book is definitely a more engaging and emotionally connecting medium. On the other hand, the movie is still engaging and tells the story which accuracy, but it is much quicker and time efficient. If it were not for this English class I probably would have just watched the movie (not a big enough difference to be worth the time). But I am happy that I did read the book and I would recommend it to anyone with the time.