Screenhead

Every so often a movie will come along that opens our eyes to terrible things that a lot of us may never have known or understood. The Godfather (1972) showed us the mafia, Boyz In The Hood (1991) showed us gang violence, Schindler’s List (1993) told of the Holocaust, and more recently, Hotel Rwanda (1994) revealed modern day genocide when we were obsessed with a cheating president. 2006 brought us Blood Diamond, which tells the story of what Ben Bridge, The Shane Company, and every other diamond retailer wished we were never aware of.

An average of 115,000 weddings occur all over the world every day. The majority of those weddings are highlighted by the exchange of rings that usually consist of a gold or platinum band for the man and a diamond ring for the woman. Some people would find irony in knowing that there’s a one percent chance that these symbols of eternal love come from African warlords that exchanged them for guns and ammunition. Blood Diamond takes place in a time when that number was as high as fifteen percent, driven mostly by smugglers like Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio). Archer would trade guns to militia captains for diamonds, then smuggle these diamonds across country borders on his way to either the local government or London to sell them, perpetuating the illegal diamond trade. By a chance meeting, Archer learns of a large, uncut, pink diamond that was hidden by Solomon Vandy, an enslaved diamond miner, which could pay his way out of Africa and to a better life. Just as he was about to convince Solomon to show him where to find it, armies of child soldiers (yes, child as in children) takes over his town while fighting the government, forcing him to flee with his new partner. Archer and Solomon then go on a quest through the villages and jungles of Africa to retrieve this rare diamond, searching for Solomon’s displaced family along the way.

All I could do was laugh when I saw the original trailers for this film. It was something about DiCaprio’s awkward accent and how he said, “…in America it’s bling-bling” that made over half of the theatre and I chuckle a bit. After listening to him for two hours, I’ve decided it’s actually a decent imitation of a South African accent (as if I was some expert) to go along with his Oscar-nominated role as a greedy diamond smuggler. I’ll tell you who really got shafted Oscar night was Djimon Hounsou. I’ll admit that I was riding the Little Miss Sunshine bandwagon along with everyone else, but after seeing Blood Diamond on DVD, I feel he deserved it a hell of a lot more. Oh well, it’s an honor just to be nominated I guess.

The Oscar-nominated performances aren’t the only things that make this movie outstanding. I learned a great deal about the diamond trade and how crazy it’s been in the past, gaining myself an interest in the subject and logging numerous hours on the internet because of it. I hadn’t anticipated that considering how horrible of a student I was. Like I said above, this is one of those movies that make you want to learn something new. There should be more like them. It’s good to be aware of the things that happen around the world, or at least that’s what my high-school history teacher told me.

Popularity: 1% [?]