Writing up Atonement and The Kite Runner for a DVD Picks column, I decided to lead with some similarities that struck me a few weeks ago thinking about the two films. Has this been discussed here or elsewhere to anyone's knowledge? Anything I missed?

Recently released on DVD, The Kite Runner and Atonement, both from 2007, present a number of striking thematic and structural similarities. Each film is based on an admired novel, and tells a generation-spanning story involving children, war, shame, guilt and efforts to make amends.

In both films, the story is set in motion when a child from a well-to-do family surreptitiously witnesses a confusing, disturbing incident involving a close member of their household—an actual sibling or one like a sibling—who is either thought to be or actually is assaulted in a shameful way.

The child’s confusion and discomfort in both cases turns against the other person, leading to a fateful moment in which the child tells a damning lie, leading to shame and banishment for an innocent party from a less well-off family.

Years pass, and the child grows up, traveling overseas and involving himself in other things, but over the years becoming fully cognizant of the wrong that was done. Eventually, a possible opportunity for atonement is offered… or is it?

Thoughts?

This topic has been moved to the better-suited "Film Criticism and Appreciation" forum...

Links to the threads on Atonement and The Kite Runner.

FWIW, I touched on some of these similarities in my review of The Kite Runner, dated December 14 ...

If the early part of the film, in which an aspiring writer is haunted by questions of his own culpability after witnessing the rape of a childhood friend, is faintly reminiscent of Atonement, then the next section is more like The Namesake, as Amir and his father adjust to life in America while still following some of the traditions that they brought with them from their homeland.

... and in a blog post, dated December 31:

In semi-related news, Variety magazine recently ran an article on the curious similarities between Atonement and The Kite Runner, both of which feature "a terrible transgressive act by a child," after which "the wronged parties are condemned to suffer through war and turmoil, while the children who wronged them -- both of whom grow up to be writers -- become aware of their 'crimes' as they mature and must make amends for their wrongs."

Variety doesn't mention it, exactly, but both films also feature the rape of a minor -- as does The Lovely Bones, apparently. (Believe it or not, the rape is not the "terrible transgressive act" in either of the two films examined by Variety; in both cases, the rape is committed by someone else, and it is the catalyst for the "terrible transgressive act" committed by the child in question.)

For whatever that's worth.

Ah, I missed that they both grow up to be writers! Thanks.

I figured such striking similarities must have been discussed before, but I didn't recall running across it anywhere. Thanks for the links.

The comparison is very apt, I think, and for me explains why Kite Runner is so dissatisfying, even insulting. Atonement, by its very structure, argues that the use of fiction to offer artificial and romanticised atonement in place of real Atonement and Grace is ultimately fruitless and shallow, while Kite Runner is precisely that: a case-in-point of what Atonement decries. In place of real forgiveness and reconciliation Kite Runner offers implausible globetrotting, kickboxing ninja Taliban pederasts, preternaturally monstrous yet somehow moronic villains, and the wheezy, deceptive consolation that somehow we can atone for our own sins.

Not that I'm bitter, or anything.