Blood Diamond is an adventure drama film directed by Edward Zwick. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for the Best Actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Djimon Hounsou. The film goes back to the event of 1996-1998 when Sierra Leone Civil War took place. In that period, the country experienced the most severe struggles between the rebel force and government soldiers. The film centers on horrible events thus portraying horrible scenes of human suffering and pain.
The main plot focuses on the adventures of Danny Archer, a diamond smuggler, and Solomon Vandy, an African fisherman who was enslaved to work in the diamond field. Vandy’s son was captured by Captain Poison, the leader of RUF forces so that Solomon. In the course of the war, the diamonds serve to provide the army with a weapon. In order to save his family, Salomon accepts the Archer’s help in the exchange for the diamond that the fisherman buried in the forest. In general, the movie reflects the tragic adventures that happened during Archer and Vandy’s mission. While overcoming the adversities they experience the reevaluation of morale. Danny develops as personality thus changing his views on material values.
The film depicts the horrible conditions in which black people working hard to mine the diamonds. They are severely treated by the government soldiers who feel no mercy in the face of the riches they could get. The director skillfully renders the panorama of the main battle where even children do not care. The soundtracks to the movie are successfully attached as they greatly contribute to the whole image of war and grief. The shelters depicted showed in the movie could hardly be called houses; the street turns out to be the place where children are trained to kill.
Bloody Diamond impressed me with an excellent and sincere play by Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou. The actors truthfully render all the hardship the main heroes had to overcome and the violence they had to endure in order to reach their main goal. It should be admitted that actors’ play was a success as I managed to see the obvious transition of Danny Archer from the hypocritical smuggler for whom money is the primary value to a person with moral ideals. The actual transition in the scene, when Vandy safes the Archer’s life by carrying them on his back to the shelter. Here, one surely noticed the emotions and feelings experienced by both heroes.
In the final battle, Danny realizes that the most valuable thing is human life as if confessing to all the deeds.
The most striking thing in the film is the description of children training where poor African kids are learned to kill people. The event depicted in the movie is the real one. It is brightly uncovered in the book A long way gone by Ishmael Beah. Here, the author helps to comprehend what experience African children had to surpass in order to survive.
On a whole, there were no specific scenes that are especially memorable to me; everything was balanced without emotional outbreaks. Therefore, the film is a flow of consciousness where you can only see people running across the streets with faces expressing fear and hopelessness. However, it is not a disadvantage because it helps to perceive the movie as quite realistic so that the viewers could imagine the real military actions.
Bloody Diamond is a veritable movie that reflects the price of a quilt. The movie is crammed with detailed scenes that disclose the fate of Africans and their low social status. However, a combination of the true violent scenes, the play of the actors, and contrasted music create a complete picture of life in Sierra Leone. I am sure that each viewer will be able to perceive the grief of war and tortures undergone by African children.
References
Beah, Ishmael. A long way gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
Blood Diamond. Zwick, Edward. Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly. Foreign Theatrical Distributor, 2006.