Directed by Edward Zwick
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly

This is Africa

Blood Diamond is stirring, old-fashioned filmmaking. It tells a worthy story on an epic scale, crammed with mega movie stars, majestic scenery, memorable characters, and capitol “T” Themes.

For a movie that wears its social conscience on its sleeve, Blood Diamond never neglects little things like craftsmanship or genuinely sympathetic characters. Close filmic cousins would be Treasure of the Sierra Madre or Casablanca – well-crafted stories in an exotic setting about characters in spiritual as well as physical crisis, where the tension between personal gain and the larger good is especially taut. I loved this movie for its heartfelt ambition, its sincerity, its intelligence, and for its revelatory performance by Leonardo DiCaprio.

I don’t mention Treasure or Casablanca gratuitously. Blood Diamond’s protagonist, diamond-smuggler Danny Archer (DiCaprio), would feel right at home at Rick’s Cafe. A white South African survivor of apartheid, he’s a seen-it-all cynic looking out for Number One; a Soldier of Fortune waiting for his one-way ticket off the Continent.

That ticket arrives in the unlikely form of a modest, moral fisherman, Solomon Vandy (the always magnetic Djimon Hounsou). Rebel raiders invade his village in a harrowing opening sequence, abducting him to the diamond mines and relegating his family to a refugee camp (population: one million). While sifting for diamonds in a river, Solomon discovers a much-coveted “Blood Diamond” — worth more, apparently, than countless human lives.

Danny and Solomon make an odd couple (with echoes of The Defiant Ones) as they quest for the diamond that promises to free each from their respective captivity. Danny wants to cash in and check out. Solomon wants his family back. Will the Blood Diamond bring them what they seek? Their quest, and the moral questions the quest raises, are reminiscent of a John Huston film; whether Treasure of the Sierra Madre or The Man Who Would Be King, Huston was obsessed with “the quest,” that search for Life’s meaning as embodied by some material aim: whether gold (Treasure) or the “stuff that dreams are made of” (The Maltese Falcon).

The search for paradise in war-ravaged Africa results in cynicism and despair. Danny says, in a rare moment of vulnerability, “Sometimes I wonder… will God ever forgive us for what we’ve done to each other? Then I look around and I realize… God left this place a long time ago.” The point of Blood Diamond isn’t that God is absent, but that God is present in the small acts of charity, the small moments of genuine humanity shared between the hopeless and the despairing.

On his search for the coveted diamond, Danny meets an older man who has devoted his life to reclaiming the lost youth of Africa for God. They share these words:

Archer: So you think because your intentions are good, they’ll spare you, huh?

Kapanay: My heart always told me that people are inherently good. My experience suggests otherwise. But what about you, Mr. Archer� Would you say that people are mostly good?

Archer: No. I’d say they’re just people.

Kapanay: Exactly. It is what they do that makes them good or bad. A moment of love, even in a bad man, can give meaning to a life. None of us knows whose path will lead us to God.

None of us indeed. Do we fight for Good or Evil? Do we engender Misery or Hope? Make no mistake, Blood Diamond is rough going in parts — brutally violent, disturbing, and certainly not for the faint-of-heart. I had a tough time with the scenes of children (including Solomon’s son, Dia) dragooned into the service of the Rebel cause — young boys given guns and drugs and brainwashed into believing that Murder is the requisite passage to Manhood. This is Evil at its most bald-faced and horrifying. As Christ said, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” Yet there’s reason to weather the storm.

Blood Diamond reinforces the idea that each person has a choice, a free will, to do good or ill, to make right or wrong choices. Danny Archer and his character arc is the key to appreciating what is ultimately uplifting and life-affirming about this movie. I’ve always respected DiCaprio’s acting chops, but his performance here is a masterful synthesis of all the talent and range he’s shown elsewhere. By turns, Archer is devilishly charming, terrifyingly threatening, scrappily street-wise, and woundingly vulnerable. DiCaprio navigates these deep waters with an impressive lack of showboating. It’s a fearless, gripping performance, and Leo deserved his Oscar nod. Slowly, by subtle degrees, he convinces you that Archer’s hard shell thinly disguises someone desperate for redemption.

The script by Charles Leavitt is smart and finely honed, the direction by Edward Zwick (helmer of the excellent Glory and Courage Under Fire) is assured and muscular, and the acting is absolutely top-notch. This one flew under my radar on its initial release, but I’m grateful to have caught up with it on DVD. Give Blood Diamond a chance. I think you’ll like it.

Posted by John Murphy on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm.