[MUSIC] Can you remember the first time you fell madly in love? Take a moment and try to recall it. Remembering that romance involves autobiographical memory, your personal memory of the past. Autobiographical memories are typically self referential, they involve you, interpersonal, they involve you and other people, and emotional, they affected you positively or negatively. In remembering your first romance, you probably recalled both episodic and semantic memories, by recalling where you first met and the things you did together, along with the knowledge of your partners name, eye color, and favorite music. Once this memory is triggered these autobiographical recollections spill forth, and you become a memoirist, telling the part of your life story. Writer Marcel Proust's memoir, A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu, translated as, In Search of Lost Time, provides a well-known example of this type of involuntary recall. After tasting a morsel of French pastry, called a Petite Madeleine, that he dipped in a cup of tea, long dormant childhood memories came rushing back. The taste, he wrote, was that of a little piece of madeleine, which on Sunday mornings at Combray, my aunt Leonie used to give to me. And as soon as I had recognized the taste, the whole of Combray sprang into being, town and gardens alike from my cup of tea. Proust needed seven books to record his autobiographical recollections in voluminous detail. In each one he traveled backward in time, attempting to recapture his past. Films depict the same type of autobiographical remembering by means of a flashback, a cinematic device in which a scene from the present dissolves into a scene from the past as a character tells a story. A flashback can be signaled by a change in background music, the appearance of a memory object such as a photograph, or a bit of dialog, as in Marc Foster's film, The Kite Runner. Flashbacks let viewers know that the story is going back in time, to show how the past led up to the present. [MUSIC] Based on Khaled Hosseini's novel, the opening of The Kite Runner featuring Khalid Abdalla, Zakria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada shows children flying kites over San Francisco park, while a young writer named Amir Qadiri watches and remembers. [MUSIC] Returning home, Amir receives an unexpected call from Rahim Kahn, an old friend of his deceased father who urges him to return to Afghanistan, adding, “You should come home. There's a way to be good again.” With these ominous words, the flashback begins, and we embark on a memory journey back in time to Amir's youth in Kabul, where he flew kites with his best friend, Hassan. [MUSIC] The Kite Runner tells a story about guilt and redemption. About correcting a wrong that once done, had unforgettable consequences. [MUSIC] One fateful day with the sky above Kabul full of kites, bdoys all over the city competed in a kite fighting contest, slicing each other’s kite to the ground >> [SOUND] [MUSIC] Eventually, one kite remained, the one flown by Amir and Hassan. [MUSIC] >> [FOREIGN] >> The son of Amir's family servant, Hassan excelled at kite running, knowing exactly where each fallen kite would land. >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> In running for the last kite, Hassan is followed by the neighborhood bully Yusef, who orders him to give up the kite. Refusing, Hassan is beaten and raped while a frightened Amir watches and hides. Riddled with guilt Amir ends their friendship, but he never forgets what happened to his friend, even after he immigrates with his father to America. [MUSIC] >> You are a storyteller, and some part of you has always known the story. [MUSIC] >> Flashing forward two decades later, an adult Amir visits the dying Rahim Kahn who reveals, that after the Taliban seize control of Kabul, they executed Hassan and his wife for protecting Amir's family home. And they took their son, Sohrab, to pleasure their brutal leader, Assef. Saddened by the news, Amir is then stunned to learn that Hussan was his half brother, and Sohrab is his nephew. Urging Amir to find the boy Rahim hands him a letter, written by Hassan describing his dreams and everlasting friendship. >> You need to go back to Kabul. [MUSIC] >> I dream my son will grow up to be a good person, a free person, an important person. I dream that flowers will bloom in the streets of Kabul again, and music will play in the sun of our houses. And kites will fly in the skies. And I dream that someday you will return to Kabul to revisit the land of our childhood. If you do, you'll find an old faithful friend waiting for you. May God be with always. [MUSIC] Hassan. >> Reading these heartfelt words, Amir knows that fate has offered him a second chance. Now, he has the opportunity to be good again. The Kite Runner moves backward and forward in time using multiple flashbacks to demonstrate how Amir's autobiographical memories reveal a coherent life story. This is the same type of process that occurs when we tell others our life stories. [MUSIC]
