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I’ll get into the politics of this film later, but first let me say it’s a quintessential entertaining Hollywood movie. The cinematography is superb. The script is tight and even in the moments that seem clichéd, you get through them quickly and realize they are necessary to give the plot momentum. In fact, the movie’s pacing is remarkable. It never slows down to a point where you lose interest for even a moment. I wanted to call Blood Diamond the “Constant Gardener of 2006” but that movie was really much, much slower and in the end far less engaging.
Set in Sierra Leone, Blood Diamond seeks to implement the world in the tragedy that occurs due to the trade in what have been named “conflict diamonds.” The movie sets out not just to tell the interlinked stories of Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a fisherman whose family is torn apart during the civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone in the late 90’s, and that of Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) the Rhodesian diamond smuggler seeking a giant diamond discovered and hidden by Vandy. The intention is to educate diamond consumers (who we hear several times are predominantly American women and their betrothed). The movie is pretty heavy handed in encouraging diamond buyers to be aware and demand that the diamonds they purchase are not conflict diamonds. This is the first distinction between Blood Diamond and Constant Gardener, at least at the end of Blood Diamond you feel like you’ve been encouraged to be an active participant in trying to stem the problem’s caused by “conflict diamonds” whereas after Constant Gardener I felt quite powerless.
But my real desire to compare Blood Diamond to Constant Gardener was born from my puzzlement about why both these movies about Africa relied on their stories being filtered through a white man protagonist. Certainly both could have been carried off just as successfully with a lead character who is black. Hey Hollywood, people did actually go see Don Cheadle’s stellar performance in Hotel Rwanda. (Believe me we weren’t there to see Nick Nolte’s ugly mug.)
Djimon Hounsou carries this movie and he isn’t even given the lead billing! When the credit’s roll, DiCaprio comes first and then Connelly’s name appears, which is frankly ridiculous. And to make matters more offensive, on poster ads ONLY DiCaprio and Connelly are listed. I guess in Hollywood, you need to star as a homeless man or a famous entertainer in order to be guaranteed a movie lead if you are black.
I guess I really would have liked less focus on the redemptive tale of the white smuggler and seen the movie explain a little more of the backgrounds of the rebel groups and Soloman Vandy. But this is a Hollywood movie after all, not the amazing documentary Darwin’s Nightmare which was probably only seen by 12 people across the entire nation.
marisa (44 posts)Lives happily in upstate Manhattan with a small dog and an amazing woman who weirdly doesn't watch movies very often. (I guess you can't have perfection.)
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The rather brilliant Darwin’s Nightmare left me depressed for about a week. Humans are a terribe species.
Comment by Mariken — Fri December 8, 2006 @ 11:43I agree with your assessment of the politics involved, but hey, if it takes a hollywoodfilm to create awareness in people who are less inclined to see the more serious stuff, then that, ultimately, is a good thing and may open their minds a little to films like Darwin’s Nightmare. Lots of girls going to see Leonardo DiCaprio and ending up thinking twice about wanting a big rock in their engagementrings, is a win in my book.
Meanwhile, this one sounds like a cross between Syriana and Constant Gardener, which is a reccomendation to me.
well i won’t give away spoilers but it’s much more linear than Syriana or Constant Gardener.
Comment by marisa — Fri December 8, 2006 @ 16:42And here comes the propaganda response. CNN today ran this article making DeBeers look like a saintly, culturally responsible, ethical company. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/12/11/koinange.botswana/index.html
Must be that DeBeers just signed another HUGE advertising contract with CNN. Call me cynical, but right after the opening weekend of Blood Diamond, I smell a rat.
Comment by marisa — Mon December 11, 2006 @ 22:14To me, this was the best movie of the year.
Your compairison with the Constant Gardner is very legit, but both movies can stand perfectly on their own. If you want to compare, then The Constant Gardner point to an ever bigger scandal, eclipsing almost every other corporate scandal there is.
To see this conflict through the eyes of the (white) DiCaprio is not as bad as you make it seem to be: white people who are born in Africa are as African as any other person. The fact that they often belong to the ruling (and oppressing) class, doesn’t make them any less a part of the country they live in, or the mess they help to create.
In my view, DiCaprio is examplary of the hurt “people like him” cause to the continent, but the corporations and militairistic forces always have to use the indigeneous people to get what they want. And that is the violence we see on TV: black people slaughtering black people, with the real culprits off camera. Both parties are fingered here, and the most guilty party gets what it deserves in this movie.
And yes, if it takes a top-billing star like DiCaprio to spread this important message, then so be it. Moreover, this is undoubtedly his best role ever, together with “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”. Leonardo finally has come off age with this intriguing movie.
Comment by paco — Thu December 28, 2006 @ 20:42IMHO, DiCaprio basically is the diamond consumer. He is who we identify with, and he is the ‘buyer’. His efforts fuel the conflict, so it’s logical to focus on his character.
Great movie. I loved the feeling of hopelessness that The Constant Gardner gave me and I must say this movie gave me that same feeling. But then I don’t buy many diamonds.
Comment by weefselkweekje — Mon January 15, 2007 @ 9:45ok, i’ll grant the star billing for DiCaprio because they did chose to show the movie with him as the protaganist. But why the hell is Connelly given star status? If i were Djimon Hounsou i would be pissed off.
Comment by marisa — Wed January 17, 2007 @ 15:03From what I gather there seems to be a lot of politics involved in establishing the credit order. It apparently has more to do with an actor’s celebrity status than with the weight of the role in the specific movie. Which of course is stupid.
Comment by weefselkweekje — Wed January 17, 2007 @ 22:19Yep, it’s a status and money thing.
Comment by paco — Fri January 19, 2007 @ 18:22Not only the order of credits is negotiated, but also the specific place and size of it on the posters. That’s why you’d sometimes see a high-profile actor heavily billed, while in reality he’d only have a minor role.
I must say I was a bit dissapointed by this. Perhaps I had too high hopes for it.
The first unforgivable (and more than mildly annoying) thing would be DiCaprio’s dissapearing/reappering South-African accent. Particularly when spoken next to Arnold Vosloo’s native tongue it sticks out. And not in a good way.
***WARNING***HERE BE SPOILERS***
Although Blood Diamond is well filmed I was also really annoyed by the sentimental jibberish that occurs between the DiCaprio and Connelly character. Angry adrenaline fueled sex between these two would have been acceptable within the limits of the plot, but that whole ‘we have come to understand eachother so well and are about to fall in love’-bit was just beyond incredible to me.
I did however actually like the fact that the film was shot from the pov of a white man. Although I understand your point, Marisa, to me it meant that the overal symbolism of the film was carried out in the microcosm of the story as well. After all, what we are looking at for most of the course of this movie, is a black man being jerked around by a white man. Having said that, the DiCaprio storyline was far less interesting than the Hounsou storyline and – specifically – the storyline of his little son being ‘drafted’ to be a child soldier.
I never felt as angry or truly moved watching Blood Diamond as I was when I watched The Constant Gardner. Although it is probably unfair to compare these two films, I am inclined to do so, exactly because of their differences. With Constant Gardener I could almost smell Africa and felt genuinly enraged about what I was being shown. Blood Diamond left me mildly annoyed (I don’t really like diamonds all that much anyway, so I any vow never to buy or want any would be meaningless) but it’s cinematography, however skilled, never gripped me the way the Constant Gardner did.
The most poignant and significant image to me was when the child soldiers are partying and in the background there is a rapvideo playing on tv: an African American male, showing of his ‘bling’ with pride, unaware of or possibly indifferent to the suffering the Africans have to endure to keep him in diamonds. Those ten seconds of film sum up the story and just about broke my heart. Blood Diamond could have done with more moments like this, imho.
Comment by Mariken — Fri February 16, 2007 @ 12:46