With all of Afghanistan’s troubles you’d think a movie would hardly rate as something to get all hot and bothered about. That is unless the movie is based on a controversial book by Afghan author Khaled Hosseini and features the highly contentious subjects of caste discrimination and sexual assault on children. Adapted by director Marc Foster, The Kite Runner is a touching story of friendship and duty. A tale about how secrets can affect us all and how we can work to make things right again. And despite the fact that the film’s subject matter put its young actors in danger back home, The Kite Runner is the finest film I’ve seen this year so far.

The story begins in Kabul prior to the Soviet invasion of the 80s where a young boy named Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) is friends with Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada), the son of his father’s servant. As Hassan works beside his father at the home of Amir’s father, who’s only known as Baba (Homayoun Ershadi), Amir goes to school and learns how to read and write and do all those other school things. Amir desires to be a writer, and in this endeavour he’s encouraged by his father’s friend Rahim Khan (Shaun Toub) and Hassan who enjoys hearing his friend’s tales.

So far so good, as the boys, despite being the target of the neighbourhood bully Assef (Elham Ehsas), laugh and play and fly kits together. The name of the film comes from competitive kite flying, a pass time in Afghanistan, where strings are coated with finely cut glass and glue as to try and break the tethers on the other kites. The Kite Runner is the one who goes to pick up the defeated kite as it becomes the prize for the victorious flyers. Hassan has an instinct for where the kite is going to land.

These kite flying scenes are just beautifully achieved and are actually fairly exciting to watch. Kite flying can’t possibly have the adrenaline oomph of a good dog fight sequence you say, hah, it can my friend, believe me. Director Marc Foster spends a lot of time with these two kids, he finely moulds their relationship as one that’s as quaint and familiar as any childhood friendship. If you’re unfamiliar with the source material, it kind of makes you stop and wonder what the movie’s about.

Then comes the twist. The friendship between Amir and Hassan is fractured as Amir witnesses an attack on Hassan by Assef, and neither calls for help or steps in to defend his friend. The secret between them breaks their friendship as Amir deals with his inability to deal with his inaction by framing Hassan for a theft and getting his father fired. Before the two boys can resolve their differences, Amir and his father flee Afghanistan in front of the advancing Russian army, Baba, as an outspoken anti-communist would surely be one of the first rounded up.

This is the part that’s causing so much fuss, that part that forced the young boys in the film to move from their homes in Afghanistan to the United Arab Emirates. The scene of Hassan’s attack could almost be called tasteful if it weren’t an act of such extreme brutality. The point is the scene is not exploitative in anyway, Foster takes great care to use editing and acting to convey the sucker-punch emotions involved in the scene. There’s a terrible resonance to the scene that rings true, it haunts the film like a ghost the way that unresolved tensions often do in real life

But to continue the plot Amir and Baba eventually end up in the United States, where Amir grows up (now played by Khalid Abdalla) and assists his father at a gas station and an area flea market while he continues to pursue his writing career. He marries and finishes his first book, but a phone call from an old friend forces Amir to return to a now Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where he must “find a way to be good again” in atonement for things past.

Foster’s attention to detail again pays off with the adult Amir’s return home. The Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is frighteningly realized with its burnt out hovels and colourless streets. “Beard patrols” stalk city looking for men without adequate facial hair and adulterers are stoned to death during half-time at the soccer match. The musicless soundtrack highlights a world without much to live for, a stark contrast from the days when bright colours and children laughing filled the street, the days when kites flied high in the sky, another activity banned by the Taliban.

Abdalla is really good playing the older Amir in these scenes. He’s Americanized now and about as prepared for the Taliban’s Afghanistan as someone who’s America-born. It’s a trial by fire to be sure, but I think that the script lets Amir down by never truly testing him, particularly when it comes to one encounter that I won’t give away. To the untrained mind, there’s not a lot of resolution, but only because one glosses over an essential line: “There is a way to be good again.” The point isn’t to find closure, but rather to find a way to make piece, a way to move forward and do better the next time.

The Kite Runner is beautifully realized and is an emotionally fulfilling film in a great many respects. There should be a great many more movies like it and I applaud the effort. This is a movie for anyone who’s ever realized the cathartic release of kite flying and at the same time it’s for those who’ve never realized that there’s any subtext to a paper box tied to a string.