It’s My Life

Over the weekend, a couple of my friends and I caught a movie “Blood Diamond’. Set against the backdrop of civil war and chaos in 1990's Sierra Leone, Blood Diamond is the story of Danny Archer, an ex-mercenary from Zimbabwe, and Solomon Vandy, a Mende fisherman. Both men are African, albeit their backgrounds and their lives are as different as they are. Until one day, both of them became entangled in a common quest to gain possession of a priceless pink diamond, one that can transform a life...or end it.

At the end of the show, I was completely stirred. Not only I find the movie disturbing and thought provoking but how one (particularly the consumers from leading countries) derive pleasure and joy in the purchase of diamonds are equally perplexing! It seems like money is always the root of the problem. Ideally, if diamonds are not acceptable in Africa for the purchases of arms, then it wouldn’t have fuelled more internal war between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the African government.

Likewise, this show also explicitly exposed the complicity of diamond industry leaders who have chosen profits over principles, at the expense of the lives of the innocent lives.

Overall, I find the director, Edward Zwick along with a strong cast did a good job in conveying the message to prohibit the purchase of conflict diamonds. Personally, I liked Blood Diamond heaps, but do not think it is a spectacular film. A good movie? Yes. Mainstream and formulaic, particularly the typical Hollywood ending, as the movie ended on a gleeful note.

Still, the movie was saved by a superb performance by DiCaprio. Djimon Hounsou’s acting was equally good and I especially enjoyed the chemistry between the two men in their scenes together. He was able to make the audience felt the gamut of dramatic emotions his character experienced during the course of the movie- pride and hope, fear and courage, outrage and desperation, and above all, sheer determination to bring back the son in the name of father.