Lauded with critical acclaim after its cinematic release, The Kite Runner is finally winding its way to DVD, and should disappoint neither those informed enough to have caught it at ‘the Pictures’, nor those who will have their first taste of this brutal, beautiful and emotive work on its home release.

The film’s narrative centres on two best friends, inseparable in their antics, who are divided by war, prejudice, intolerance and their own actions. It doubles as a social comment on Afghanistan, a nation with a past as complex as its present.

Based on the novel by Kaled Hosseini, the film allows us in to the life of Amir (Ebrahimi/Abdalla) at different points in his life. Beginning (ever-so-slightly) in the past, wherein Amir has just had his first book published, we are given an insight into the journey he has made, with his father, from their homeland and his youth, to California and his future.

Perhaps most symbolic is the film’s overriding point that no matter how far you go to hide from your past, eventually you will have to return to it and face the demons within. No prizes for guessing at least two of the targets for this message…

Suffice to say that whilst the film brims with beauty- from the eye-watering aesthetics of the Kabul kite scenes, to the shots across the Afghan landscape - it is simultaneously horrific in that most subtle and inherently intelligent way.

We gaze on, appalled at the treatment of Hassan, the son of Amir’s household’s servant by other Afghans- an action ‘justified’ by racial difference which results in the most horrific violation, that is again a master-stroke of understatement.

We do not need to be told what happens to him. We have it in our minds already.

This is indicative of the nature of the film- it makes it’s points in the most fitting ways given the explosive environment that now exists in Afghanistan- by talking quietly to the viewer. It stops safely short of preaching on the pitfalls of the nation, instead merely showing us snippets of why these pitfalls exist.

The Kite Runner may well represent a small fraction of contemporary cinematic product that deals with the Middle East from a sympathetic perspective, and its success is arguably symbolic of the only way such events can impact on US and British film culture (note the Dreamworks production).

However, it should be commended firstly for its pure filmic success, and secondly for its representations of a heavily complex and misunderstood country of which we are often given no more knowledge than the fact that there is a war there, we are fighting it, and they are extremists.

DVD Extras

Audio Commentary with Marc Foster, Kaled Hosseini and David Benioff. Words from The Kite Runner Images from The Kite Runner Public service announcement with Kaled Hosseini. Theatrical Trailer

The audio commentary is undoubtedly the best feature here, with the commentators providing insights into the reasons behind the choices, not just the angle of the camera of the use of the shot-reverse-shot technique.