Blood Diamonds

Diamonds are definitely not my best friends. They used too until I saw Blood Diamonds and instantly converted into pearl-enthusiast.

The Blood Diamond would probably be the first film entry that’s going to be positive. In fact, I will say it now that this film is a must-watch, a not to be missed – whatever you call it, you have to watch it.

I nearly didn’t make it to the cinema being a cynic for anything that sounded too ambitious – a story about diamond wars, unrest in an African country, Leonardo DiCaprio as a South African – yeah sure. I was definitely not prepared for what I was going to see, hear, and experience in the next two hours and eighteen minutes that I sat through in the cinema.

Sure I’ve read many stories, articles, and news about the diamond wars and civil wars in several African countries (I’m not generalizing here; I’m just not good in memorizing history details). I’ve seen many pictures of grief, pain, hopelessness, and disfigurements – all the results of this chaos that seized these countries.

And that’s how and why Blood Diamond should not only win the awards but should be watched by many as possible. It’s rare to come by a film that’s actually capable of capturing these details so real and unrefined.

Blood Diamond is a film that not only played out on a wonderfully written plot complete with excitement, suspense, and everything else that a good film needs. But it also played out many significant issues that grip the world today in that so call god forsaken region. Evidently were the diamond wars, child soldiers, conflict diamonds, and so forth. Then there were the underlying but still obvious notes that were laced in the film such as world aid, how people feel or think about the situations, whether to save one live or all, the constant greed and ignorance in the world outside, and how we always take our lives for granted.

All these elements were welded so effortlessly together in the hands of director, Edward Zwick, who did a relatively mediocre job with The Last Samurai. The actors in this film also deserve credits for living their roles so raw and convincing, especially Djimon Hounson. Djimon had a lot of strong emotions in his character (naturally, when you’re estranged from your family in Sierra Leone in 1999) and they were so powerfully expressed by him that you could almost feel the rage and total lost of all humane control when he was trying to protect his son from the rebels and the army.

Leonardo also deserves recognition for his role as a diamond smuggler with a conscience and its fair enough that he should have troubled past (boo-hoo. An easy excuse for the film maker to make him bad? Yes. Although it is quite an overused plot in many films for the bad guy who has a conscience, but this time I will accept it as Leonardo was simply flawless in his role). This is however not the first time I’ve been wow-ed by this wonder boy who emerged from his Titanic days and not being beached. His first wow-ing performance came in the role of Howard Hughes in an overlooked epic film, The Aviator. But that’s another film.

Anyway, instead of wasting more of your time here in this brilliant blog, I think you should grab your wallet now and head out to catch that film. If not, book the tickets online and make a date. It’s time to reduce that ignorance and challenge yourself to see what you’ll probably never witness in your wonderfully blessed life.