It’s difficult to watch a movie so powerful, full of critically important themes, and well-produced and not be able to recommend it. Right away, listen to me when I am advising you not to see this movie.
So I watched Blood Diamond with a couple of my friends at the Ramses Hilton Shopping Mall here in Cairo. The mall is 8 or 9 floors high and the top floor consists of a billard hall, a McDonalds, and the theater with maybe 5 or 6 screens. Besides Blood Diamond, there was one other “western” film playing and a couple ones I didn’t recognize. Anyways, the movie played in English with Arabic subtitles and the theater experiance itself was quite nice with comfortable chairs and a medicore-sized screen that produced a surprisingly clear and bright image. The sound was also top-notch, and its clear that the theater tunes its sound to the individual preference of high dynamics more than the “average” preference that seems to be the case in the US. In other words, there were times when it got really loud and moments when the sounds of people screaming amidst gunfire were hauntingly realistic.
The movie features Leonardo DiCapprio, Jennifer Connelly, and Djimon Hounsou. For the negative reviews DiCapprio got about his performance (specifically his accent in the film) I found him to be mostly convincing and his accent certainly didn’t detract from the film as a whole. I appreciated the directors ability to make me dislike the protagonist while wanting him to overcome the odds and survive; normally I don’t like this. But in this movie, it worked well for one reason and it’s summed up in one of the movies motif phrases: TIA, This Is Africa. That is to say, the movie plays DiCapprio’s character not as someone out to help the world (that’s Connelly’s role) but as someone out to get what they want…and ultimately deserve. Something that I assume the movie was trying to say about Africa and the people who live there, not necessarily the people who are African.
Anyways, that’s all just filler. Because the important part in my mind is the representation of the evil of the world and the igornance of the masses. The story hinges upon the diamond industry and the methods of exploitation and abuse used to support it. The plot, I believe, accuratley connects much of Africa’s child-army with the diamond industry. If you had to re-read that last sentence then you may be like me. Somewhere in the back of my mind of I knew of people who stole children literally from their mothers arms, enslaved them, brainwashed them, and turned them against their own people in order to perpetuate the motives of the few warlords in attempt for control and ultimatley money. But watching it happen on screen was something I wasn’t necessarily prepared for…I’m not sure who would be. There is one particularly moving scene where a father travels hundreds of miles to rescue his son who was kidnapped, and what he finds is his 10year old-or-so son ready to kill him. While the situation was decidedly Hollywood-ized (this happens right after DiCapprio’s character calls in a helicopter air strike….which does actually happen in Africa, where there are some in control of vast military resources) the point was clear and vivid: wanting to kill your father shows there is a big problem there.
There are so many aspects and important messages in this movie, I won’t try to explain them. But what I will say is this: while I was deeply affected (both good and bad) by the movies at first almost careless images of mutilation and war, but clearly realisitic depictions, and as it continued I began to realize that this was the reality thousands of people faced daily, even today, it is my belief that I don’t, nor you, need to be exposed to sensationalization in order to be roused to a cause.
So I applaud the makers of Blood Diamond for making the movie they did. I am sure many people will benefit from the glimpse into a world they never had a clue about. But it’s unfortunate that it takes a movie to do this, and I want to challenge you, my friends, family, and collegues to find alternative means to approaching these issues and situations, without having to expose yourself to excessive amounts of violence. To those that might argue that we need to see the violence in order to understand, I pose the question (which I would love to discuss, so email me!) of this: Do you need to watch someone being raped in order to understand? someone being decapitated in order for you to grimace? someone taking their life in order to be confused? Can our hearts not break just knowing that this is occuring without having to physically observe it?
To give you a head start, here’s some things which I found in some internet searching. I cannot vouch for their content but am offering them as starting points to explore some of the suffering and injustice occuring in this world of ours… Please send me links or reviews of other resources about this issue. I will post reviews as I watch/read them and update this list as seems fitting:
Wishing you joy in your pursuit of truth and peace for the world,
john
