Flick Picks
August 2007

Blood Diamond
Reviewed by Cynthia Burr Larson

I have been torn about my reviews this month, mainly because the two movies I viewed are terribly violent. However Blood Diamond has a real purpose. Please think twice about allowing even a teenager to see this without some understanding of the reason behind the film. In this great country of America, we have become calloused, cavalier and amoral about the ongoing life tragedies in other countries, such as those in Africa. After seeing Blood Diamond, I can assure you I will never look to purchase anything but a synthetic diamond. I wonder how diamonds became so important that thousands of people are slaughtered like animals because of the diamonds so-called value! For the knowledge alone of how many lives have been destroyed over our desire for diamonds, I am grateful to have seen the film. Blood Diamond takes place during the Civil War in Sierra Leone in 1999.

Leonardo DiCaprio (Danny Archer) plays a South African diamond smuggler, and in my opinion, it is his most credible acting role as an adult. He encounters an innocent fisherman, Djimon Hounsou (Solomon Vandy), who is captured by rebels and forced to harvest diamonds so they can buy arms. While the military raids this diamond mine, Vandy finds one particularly enormous pink diamond worth millions and is able to stash it before escaping with his life. Archer meets Vandy and convinces him to retrieve the diamond in order to get his family back.

Hounsou has an amazing stature and carries his role with dignity. Then there is Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly (Maddy), who is completely miscast as an aggressive, conscientious journalist, who appears at the resort where Archer is having a drink and chides and interrogates him about what he does for a living.

Another horror of this story also comes as the rebels teach children, one of them being the son of Vandy, Dia Vandy, (Kagiso Kuypers), to kill people at random for no reason. The realism of that scene in particular was horrifically and indelibly imprinted in my mind, and that is where I turned the film off for my 14-year-old to leave the room. Unfortunately, I believe our youths here in America are becoming desensitized to these atrocities through films such as these and Play Station/X-Box games. Now, as I sit at my computer and look at the peaceful mountainside, I can only say that after viewing movies such as Hotel Rwanda and Blood Diamond, I am grateful that my family and I do not have to live with fear and bloodshed, but live in a country that already stands for freedom. Rated R for very graphic violence!

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The North Columbia Monthly provides news, views, humor and a calendar of events for an area that stretches from Nelson in British Columbia south to Spokane in Washington State and covers all points in between. A free (and free-thinking, progressive) magazine, The Monthly is available at several hundred spots throughout the region and now is also available on-line at www.ncmonthly.com. Published once a month since 1994, The Monthly is an independent magazine that often challenges contemporary wisdom by encouraging critical thinking about issues and attitudes in the region and beyond.

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