A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Blood Diamond

Date Viewed: 12/9/06

Details:

Leonardo DiCaprio (Danny Archer)

Djimon Hounsou (Solomon Vandy)

Jennifer Connelly (Maddy Bowen)

Director: Edward Zwick

Score: +

The Review: TIA.

Conflict diamonds are raw gemstones stolen or appropriated to fund revolutions and/or procure arms for various insurgencies across the African continent. Monetarily dense and both easily portable and concealed, for many years these were the currency of conflict -- and surreptitiously traded by the most prestigious of diamond and jewelry merchants in the world (if you believe the movie's subtext). There is presently an embargo on trading in conflict diamonds, but this has not always been the case.

The time is 1999, the location war-torn Sierra Leone. Armed thugs -- arbitrary power-crazed bullies, eager to kill or maim on whim, grasping at dignity by calling themselves revolutionaries -- are leading armies comprised largely of kidnapped and indoctrinated children. "This is Africa" (TIA) is how a cynical mercenary glosses over the complexities of the situation, and it becomes a catch-phrase for a form of military ennui.

Blood Diamond takes you into the midst of the revolution, and shows explicitly the abuses of power and the betrayal of commerce through the eyes of three people. Solomon Vandy (Hounsou) is a Mende fisherman whose family is ripped apart by marauding paramilitary bands, and who is forced by them to mine diamonds in a placer stream. Danny Archer (DiCaprio) is a Rhodesian-born mercenary who's been involved for many years in both contract war and diamond smuggling. Maddy Bowen (Connelly) is an American journalist following the struggle in Sierra Leone, eyes open for access to information about the trade in conflict diamonds, interested not so much in the story but in changing the world.

Watching the effect of the conflict on Vandy's family is heart-wrenching, particularly since his son is enlisted into one of the children's armies. Trying to figure out Archer's character is, well, trying -- more cynical than conflicted, possibly duplicitous, it takes nearly the entire film to sort out where his heart is.

(28-Dec-06)

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