diamonds are not a girl's best friend

On Sunday night, I saw Blood Diamond (2006) at the second-run movie theatre on campus. I'm sure it's already on DVD in the States. Hey, maybe it is here, too. So I am a little behind. Forgive me. By the way, this post contains a lot of SPOILERS so if you are interested in seeing this movie (and you should be, especially since you can never depend on someone else to tell you about how things are), then stop after you've read my summary of the film.

I didn't like it, so let me begin with what I did enjoy: it's beautifully made, and by that I mean they knew how to film the gorgeous topographic landscapes of the African continent. They don't really reinvent how Africa is filmed. The landscape has been romanticized just like this a hundred times before, and I suspect it will continue until someone has had enough. Or until we start to really watch and discuss African films (meaning films made by Africans) which show Africa from a different perspective. I suppose films that take place in Africa film the beauty of the openness of the mountains and plains to contrast with the film's serious message (in this case: the exploitation on many levels that diamond mining entails) and the general chaos of the city and shantytowns where the movies undoubtedly always take place. Exceptions to this urban rule but romanticize the landscape nevertheless: I Dreamed Of Africa (2000) and The Air Up There (1994). The Lion King (1994) has played a large part, too. Can you name any others? I haven't seen The Last King of Scotland (2006), yet.

I think I should give a quick summary before I go on to talk about the performances. Djimon Hounsou is Solomon Vandy (could they be more obvious?), a fisherman who lives in a peaceful village in rural Sierra Leone. The year is 1999, and a civil war has thrown the country into chaotic violence. This is mainly perpetrated by "revolutionaries" who are against the government and run throughout the country killing people and taking young boys to join their army. They take hostages to mine for diamonds so they can fund their violence, so they can buy guns. When Solomon's village is destroyed, his family is taken away and he is forced to mine. He finds and hides a giant pink diamond just as the military comes to the mine to stop the efforts of the "revolutionaries," but with equal violence. To make a long story short, he meets diamond smuggler Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) in jail where Danny overhears Solomon's "mine boss" demand that Solomon tell him where he hid the diamond. Danny's in debt to other shady people, so he wants to know too, and he gets Solomon out of jail. Eventually, they team up with Jennifer Connelly's Maddy Bowen, a supposedly conscientious journalist, who Danny's using to get transportation around the country to track down Solomon's diamond. Maddy's using Danny to write an expose. And she thinks she's falling in love with him. I'll say more about that later.

Anyway, the film had its cinematography going for it. And it had much less else. The performances were--for lack of a better word--off. I'm not one of those people that think an accent = acting, but they are a part of the performance. In pretending to be someone or something, you should at least be consistent, right? Well, DiCaprio's inconsistent accent was distracting, and this detracted from his performance. I never really bought it. Sometimes he sounded Zimbabwean as he is supposed to, but alternatively he sounded like himself (American), South African, or even New Zealander. The one scene where he speaks what I have referred to as "African jive" was a bit disgusting and racist. I suppose it is meant to show that he can communicate with these black African rebel groups in their own English language, but it just felt wrong. He's an imperialist. He still refers to Zimbabwe as Rhodesia. Need I say more?

I called Jennifer Connelly's journalist "supposedly conscientious" because, while most of her lines point out the First World's downright deplorable exploitation and profiteering of a situation that only makes Africans' lives worse, she exploits them, too. Whenever she took out her camera to snap shots of people in refugee camps, in the streets, etc. I just felt that she doesn't understand that she's not really helping the situation. Not to mention, she is fully aware of Danny's intentions to take Solomon's diamond for himself. And she is allowing him to because she wants a story from Danny, a man on the inside of all this big business.

Djimon Hounsou gives the best performance, but in scenes where he is shouting like a madman, they're just... off. I don't know how else to describe it. Number one: you can't understand what he is saying and number two: it is so maniacal that it seems over-the-top.

Speaking of performances, Michael Sheen as an English executive for a diamond company and Jimi Mistry as a smuggler-buddy of Danny's are totally underused. They should have gotten other actors to play with the background, not these two who are spot on in (almost) everything they do. (Michael, I still don't understand why you did the Underworld movies. Did Kate talk you into it?)

More than this, I thought the message was very heavy-handed. And we have Connelly's character to thank for this. I understand it is made for audiences that know nothing about this problem or Sierra Leone's recent history, but they were pounding my head so much that I got a headache. They didn't even film Blood Diamond in Sierra Leone. No wonder the landscapes looked familiar: it was mainly South Africa, the most heavily represented African country on screen.

For this reason, I have compared it to The Constant Gardener (2005), which is a fucking masterpiece next to this one. I understand it is a different country (Kenya) and a different kind of way in which Western and Northern countries are taking advantage of Africa (pharmaceutical companies experimenting new drugs), but as a suspense with a message, it just worked a lot better. Hell, for a non-African film, it shot the landscape in a much grittier way. That's commendable. Plus they actually filmed it in Kenya rather than the studio's request that they work in South Africa (where it'd have been easier and/or cheaper to insure the actors and crew). And then they set up a fund to help build in the area they filmed. That was giving a little something back. What can Blood Diamond hope to aspire to? People stop buying diamonds? Don't think so. Is it enough that a movie with a political message as big as this one only instigates discussion and motivates bloggers like myself to write about it? I've just ripped it to shreds.

And the would-be romance between Danny and Maddy was just sickening. Why use it to soften him up? Their last scene "together," when they are on the phone, is unbearable. Spending a few days dodging bullets and running through the jungle with a guy who's in the business of doing what you hate really shouldn't make you fall in love with him no matter how good-looking he is. Ugh. I wasn't going to spoil it for you but that "unbearable" scene is the one in which Danny dies, alone, looking over a ravine, sitting on a cliff, having a change of heart.

If he knew he could survive, I'm not so sure he would have let Solomon keep the diamond all to himself. And he had originally told Maddy that the only way she could publish the story was if he died. In his last breaths, he decides that Maddy should help Solomon get to London and sell it. Documenting the sale with photos to accompany Maddy's expose, Solomon and Maddy instigate a scandal for the diamond-selling companies that leads to provisions in international affairs to cut down the number of "conflict diamonds" on the market. What I have a problem with is this: they never show that Solomon DIDN'T take the £2 million the diamond company represented by Michael Sheen offered him. They don't show him refusing the money because it's tainted. I have every reason to believe--because of the film--that Solomon took it. Did he donate it to help stop the war in his country or to rebuild his country? Doesn't say.

The film had good intentions, but ultimately it wasn't very engaging. The scenes of massacres didn't even move me. It was no Hotel Rwanda (2004). Just another white man's guilt movie (which I have no problem with), but it could have been done a lot better.

I just had a thought: I think "white man's guilt" movies should actually use this rhetoric. These political message movies about Africa should explicitly address those who don't think Africa is a white man's problem. Are you kidding? Imperialism is more to blame than anything else. And, no, I don't think this contradicts my earlier criticism about the film lacking subtlety. I think Blood Diamond and all the rest have tried to say this is the white man's fault, but they have gone about it in ridiculous ways. (See Blood Diamond for more on this or read this post again.)

On a much lighter note, I just heard a radio commercial for a jeweler you can only find in malls. One of their diamonds is called a Leo. Ain't that funny? Maybe it's inspired by one of his earlier performances, as that poor lovelorn guy who dies after a ship sinks. Wasn't there a diamond in that one, too?