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| Dijmon Hounsou shares a tender moment with his on screen son played by Kagiso Kuypers |
Fueled by human rights issues, Edward Zwick’s 2006 film Blood Diamond aims to reveal the seedy
underground realm of diamond trading. Set in the pre-Kimberly process era, the
movie depicts the horrific consequences of the diamond trade, including
slavery, child soldiers, and the actions of the rebel army the Revolutionary
United Front, not to mention the terrible conditions they are forced to live
in.
The story
follows the character Solomon Vandy (played by Djimon Hounsou) who is captured
by the R.U.F. where he is forced to search in riverbeds for diamonds. Risking
everything, Solomon smuggles a diamond and hides it away so that he may find it
later. In a twist of fate, Solomon regains his freedom and seeks out to recover
his diamond and reunite with his family (including his son who was abducted by
the R.U.F. as well). Along the way, his path gets intertwined with various
characters including a diamond smuggler, Danny Archer, (played by Leonardio
Dicaprio) and an American journalist, Maddy Bowen, (played by Jennifer
Connelly) along with several others, all of whom have vested interest in the
diamond.
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| Dicaprio plays the Zimbabwean diamond smuggler |
The cast is
well rounded with particularly good efforts done by Hounsou and Dicaprio, who
play an emotionally torn father and a convincing diamond smuggler respectively
(though it takes some time to get use to Dicaprio as a white African.)
Along the
way you see some nice shots of Africa but the majority of the movie’s appeal
comes from its story and characters. The motivations of the characters are all
different and dynamic this fleshes out the characters and makes them all the
more interesting. Near the end of the film the question of who’s to blame
becomes more and more ambiguous making the viewer realise the moral grey areas
that are ever present.
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| Jennifer Connelly in the role of an American journalist |
However, the
central focus of the film is as a platform to demystify the brutal trade of
diamond mining in Africa. If you have not yet seen Blood Diamond I would highly recommend it. Besides exposing the
secrets of the trade, Blood Diamond crafts
a great story. With its great characters and great actors Blood Diamond won’t disappoint.
Dude, I saw the first half-hour of this movie in class, and I don't think I could watch the rest. I know it's bad, but exposing myself to hardships that are so real in this world is just too painful. Do you think they did a realistic job of representing the issue of blood diamonds? Or did they glamourize the danger?
ReplyDeleteWell there's always a bit of exadduration in movies, after all they are primarily ment for entertainment, but all in all I think this movie did a good job exposing the conditions. From what I can tell the representation of the RUF was pretty close to the book, as they actually did dismember people's hands to scare people away from voting. Though the violence may sometimes be slightly over the top I think they did a good job of making people aware of the issue.
DeleteI remember seeing glimpses of this movie when I was younger, very shocking. I have been meaning to re-watch it, I like how it really gets people thinking of where the stuff we buy comes from. (Domino effect).
ReplyDeleteI never heard of the movie till now and I never knew about the diamond trades corruption. I care about fossils not diamonds so I know nothing about the diamond trade. Do you think this movie would open the general publics eyes to what really goes into diamond rings and mabye bring about changes to the diamond industry?
ReplyDelete