Blood Diamond: From Political Conflict to Film
Over the years, there have been many motion pictures that have depicted political conflict. The influences of politics are among elements that influence and shape the development of national identity in various countries (Fuller, 2006). It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that development of cultures and identities of such countries are also orchestrated by the prevalence for political conflict. Can the same be said about cinema, especially motion pictures? In motion pictures, politics has always been a key element. Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neill had once famously said that “‘all politics are local’ one might readily assume that motion pictures dealing with political events should provide the clearest indication of the nature of” (Gillespie, 2008:193) the local institutions in a particular country.
This research paper will examine and analyze the nature and significance of political conflict in the film Blood Diamond (Zwick, 2006) in order to find out to what extent motion pictures capture the complexities of political conflict. Most of the world did nothing when civil war broke out in Africa in 1991, but when a movie like Blood Diamond is released sixteen years later; everyone sits in movie theaters to watch what they did nothing about. Viewers watched the film idly relying on their exposure of Africa orchestrated by a stranger. So how believable is the accuracy and the interpretation of the complexities of political conflict in Blood Diamond.
Blood Diamond (2006): The Accuracy in the Portrayal of Political Conflict?
On the Internet Film Database, a reviewer has described Blood Diamond as “A Hollywood film tells an African story full of death and violence” ("Reviews & ratings," 2006). Although the heavy overtone of the film is accurately described in this quote, but there is more to the story and how accurately it portrays the conflict within the diamond trade the fueled the chaos of civil war in Sierra Leone.
• Representation of conflict: As far as how accurately Blood Diamond portrays the diamond trade in Africa, the portrayal is impressively accurate. The horrific realities of role played by conflict diamonds in the recent civil war in Sierra Leone ("Illegal diamond trade," 2000) are revealed in Blood Diamond. The film takes place in the year 1999, during the Sierra Leone Civil War, which started back in March 1991 ("Sierra Leone civil," ), and as the film depicts, was sparked by conflict diamonds. The film also accurately portrays the civil war as a bloody revolution. As shown in the film, the rebel group “Revolutionary United Front (RUF)” were able to finance their civil war ("Sierra Leone civil," ) through illegal diamond trade. Surprisingly, the film illustrates some of themes behind the violence that is being portrayed quite appropriately. The film makes it apparent that the violence is calculated and purposeful rather than being a product of chaotic, senseless political environment. Both the form and objective of most of the violence in the film seems to be parallel with violence at the time of the Sierra Leone Civil War. It might also seem as if Blood Diamond has glorified violence, but the truth is that viewers are bombarded with terrifying images from chaotic killings to forced amputations to express the utter brutality of the political violence.
• Destruction of society: Another aspect of Blood Diamond’s accuracy is its portrayal of the destruction of society by gemstones that are meant to be symbols of commitment, joyful new beginnings and love. The film does a good job of showing that diamonds mines are also a source of civil wars, human rights abuses, unspeakable human suffering, and violence. The film captures the fact that diamonds became a curse for Sierra Leone (Lujala, Gleditsch & Gilmore, 2005). The film also clearly indicates the shocking human rights abuses and violence plagued diamond mining in Sierra Leone in the midst of civil war. As shown in the film, beatings, child labor, forced labor, killings, rape, torture, and other abuses took place in the diamond mines quite frequently at that time ("Sierra leone, gross," ). Thus, as far as the representation of destruction of the African society goes, Blood Diamond accurately shows Sierra Leone as it was amidst the civil war, i.e. a country that had to endure brutal civil conflicts fueled by diamonds. Blood Diamond is a high-tension film that accurately portrays the chaotic, disturbing and uneasy atmosphere with its cinematographic style, especially the extensive use of handheld camerawork. In Blood Diamond, the Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown is portrayed as being frightening and frantic, and it truly was ("Sierra Leone: Getting," 1999). The atmosphere in Sierra Leone was unsafe, riddled with tension, just as the movie portrays. Certainly, violence in the film is not solely offered for the sake of violence. The violence in the film is shown with context, i.e. to accurately depict the destruction of society. This is something that is rare in the films of today.
• Illegal diamond trade: Throughout the plot of the film, there is another simultaneous subplot that is going on that revolves around the illegal diamond trade. The film shows that a group of London diamond traders is partly funding the RUF, and there is certainly some accuracy behind this portrayal (Epstein). The Sierra Leonean diamonds reach these traders through a series of shell corporations and are then sold abroad. Although the political tensions between the government of Sierra Leone and the rebels are not illustrated, the film effectively explores the political implications of Western agencies in the illegal diamond. It is consistently indicated through the film that if it were not the market that Western demand created the civil war would not have happened, which is true. The movie also implies that these Western companies did not care about the human lives; they just wanted the best diamonds, and this was indeed the policy of these companies. Interestingly, even the mercenaries, even the protagonist Leonardo DiCaprio's John Archer, who are supposed to assist and intervene in the civil are shown to be involved in the diamond trade, which again is a factual portrayal (David, 1999). So indeed, the movie accurately depicted how the illegal diamond industry works, and the role that is played by this industry in fueling the conflict in Sierra Leone. Even diamond trade experts agree that Blood Diamond accurately “illustrates the incredible devastation the illegal diamond trade has caused” ("Diamond trade expert," 2006).
Blood Diamond (2006): The Flaws in the Interpretation of Political Conflict?
When watching a film like Blood Diamond, the accuracy of the portrayal of political conflict isn’t the only concerning aspect. There were great flaws and variations in the relationship between facts and how they were portrayed in Blood Diamond based on the directing and writing of the film, but also aspects of production value, such as budget, cinematography and star power.
• Hollywood conventions: Production value and star power were some of the perks that Blood Diamond had as a high profile Hollywood film. When it comes to reaching the mainstream, these are certainly advantages, but the overall impact of the story, the political conflict, is weakened by the inclusion of particular Hollywood conventions. For instance, Jennifer Connelly’s Maddy Bowen, an idealistic white journalist, could have potentially incorporated in the film as a believable part of the story but the character actually swerves the story from the political conflict it should be focusing on. No doubt, Bowen is important to the story since throughout the film she assists Danny and Solomon, and brings Solomon out of African eventually. However, the existence of her character seems fabricated because she is emphasized as Danny’s love interest throughout the film. She does good deeds in the movie, but they seem to be supporting the love interest sub-plot, a Hollywood constant, and numerous times the significance of the political conflict, which is the focus of the film, gets blurred because of the way her character is portrayed.
• Politics and colonialism: Blood Diamond is a visually rich and accurate film, but as far as the informative content of the film, there doesn’t seem to be much. For instance, the film lacks information about the evolution of politics behind the illegal trade of blood diamonds. The film does not explain that a type of endemic warfare parallel to what was common in the post-Cold War world is represented by conflict that consumed Sierra Leone for a decade. The film does not provide information about how blood diamonds contributed in enriching politicians and their followers, and were a source of illicit wealth to sustain the Sierra Leonean political élite (Bayart, Ellis & Hibou, 2009). Another flaw in the film is that the role that colonialism played in creating the environment of poverty, unrest and violence in Sierra Leone is not acknowledged properly. The film is full of explicit colonialist dialogue, images and narrative such as the repetitive phrase “T.I.A.,” means “‘This Is Africa,’ said with a resigned shrug, excusing everything, explaining nothing” (French, 2007). The film seems to be justifying and inciting colonialism, and disavows the role it played in creating Sierra Leone’s problems (Chinua, 1977).
• Child soldiers: Blood Diamond does expose the truth behind child soldiers with its narrative. The film depicts drug-addicted teenage boys with machetes, and this truth is explained in the film by retorting to explicit and graphic sequences, but the film leaves minimal opportunity for the audience to empathize with these children. The film also film does not sufficiently show the overall process of the transformation of these children into dehumanized, violent killers. The film focuses on violence being carried out, rather than how the children react to the brutality. Moreover, the film does not clearly explain the significance of and the role played by drugs in turning young children into machete wielding savages. The film implies the forced use of drugs but does not show that the RUF commanders actually forced these young, boy soldiers to take drugs to ““improve” the quality of their fighting, a practice which intensified from 1995 onwards” (Restoy, 2006) but the significance of drugs in this aspect is never explained in the film. The film does that explain that the reason these children are given “a chemical substance” to make them “more and more dangerous like a bush fire” (Kuteh).
• The role of the West: In the film, the Maddy Bowen claims that “People back home wouldn't buy a ring if they knew it cost someone else their hands” (Zwick, 2006) but what the film does not explain is that it was the diamond consumers who actually supported the conflict that took place in Sierra Leone. In fact, although the film falls shy when it comes to elaborating the role of the blood diamond buyers, the foreigners who purchased these conflict diamonds played an equal part in the genocide and war crimes that took place amidst the Sierra Leone Civil War. Britain, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Russia are among the countries that have been linked to the purchase of conflict diamonds, and the United States happens to be “U.S. happens to be the largest consumer of conflict diamonds, purchasing over $33.7 billion dollars’ worth of the rocks in 2005” (EcoSalon, 2009). Although the story of Blood Diamond takes place in 1999, there could have been some mention of Executive Order 13194, which was released two years later, to explain the role of the United States in prohibiting the import of Sierra Leonean diamonds ("Executive order 13194," 2001). While it true that the United States has been one of the largest consumers of blood diamonds, but the United States eventually took note of suffering of the people of Sierra Leone because of the civil war that was sparked by diamonds, unfortunately the film does not refer to this fact.
Not the voice of Africa: Although Blood Diamond is a film that takes place in Africa and revolves around the political conflict in one of the most illustrious African countries, but the film cannot be considered as the voice of Africa or the African people. Even Djimon Hounsou’s Solomon Vandy cannot be regarded as the voice of the African people. Although it is said in the film that the “The third world is not a world apart, and the witness you hear today speaks on its behalf. Let us hear that voice. Let us learn from it, and let us ignore it no more” but the film already ends before Solomon actually makes his statement. Moreover, Solomon’s character r essentially remains static throughout the film. His character does not change much even though he experiences numerous traumas. It seems that the narrative makes no room to allow his character to develop. However, since the focus of the film was political conflict in an African country, Solomon’s character should have been a titular character. The acting in Blood Diamond is the typical “Hollywood style,” which makes the film appear less authentic in this aspect. Although the performances of DiCaprio and Hounsou are riveting, but it is arguable that the existence of Danny Archer is not realistic and the portrayal of Solomon is not fair. Blood Diamond is on the border of being a melodrama.
The Ending: For a film like Blood Diamond that deals with traumatic incidents, underscoring the final message crucially depends on the ending of the film. Blood Diamond has a bitter-sweet ending but it is the typical heartwarming “Hollywood” ending. The film seems to show that a solution to the issue of blood diamonds and the political conflict in Sierra Leone popped up out of nowhere, all of a sudden. However, the truth is that it took almost another 4 years to devise a system of check and balance in terms of the flow of conflict diamonds when the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was launched ("The Kimberley Process," ). Blood Diamond’s makes the reality of how the diamond industry has been exploiting Sierra Leone a bit too digestible. The film leaves gives the audience a lot of questions easy answers rather than leaving them with crucial questions, which surely increased the exposure of the film but unfortunately, the does not make it a very effective political film. Moreover, the end title card that requests consumers to make sure they don’t purchase conflict diamonds is also a bit too blatant. Additionally, the emotionally tear-jerking ending that Zwick tried to attempt also cannot be considered as successful as Zwick might have hoped it would be since it also deviates from the political conflict that the film revolves around. Blood Diamond could have brought out a far more enduring and satisfying message with its ending but the film actually losses its believability because its hollow ending.
Personal Opinion: Does Blood Diamond Do Justice to the Political Conflict in Sierra Leone?
There is no doubt that Blood Diamond is a historically accurate film, but as mentioned, the film has quite a few flaws when it comes to the interpretation of the political conflict that gripped Sierra Leon during the time of the Civil War. As discussed, one of the major flaws in Blood Diamond is that it seems to be attempting to appeal a white audience. The film could have done a better job of interpreting what the African locals of Sierra Leone had gone through if it had revolved around a titular African character. The film had that character in the form of Solomon Vandy, but his character was given no opportunity to grow. Although Blood Diamond was a big budget Hollywood film, if it is compared to a low budget Nigerian film that shares the same story and theme like Ezra (Aduaka, 2007), it seems that the latter does more justice to the political conflict. It is worth debating whether the goal of Blood Diamond was to inform or entertain. However, it is apparent that the film is trying to impact the audience with shocking and explosive action sequences. On the contrary, in the Sunday Times Magazine Aduaka stated that “Ezra is not about who is good, and who is bad, it’s about the effects of war.”
In conclusion, Blood Diamond is a film, i.e. chiefly entertainment, surely it had a certain depth, but in the end, its sole purpose was to entertain, which as mentioned becomes evident from all the action packed sequences the film contains. Historically speaking, the film definitely does its best to shock the audience by accurately informing them about the war in Africa, but the film does not shake the viewers’ view of humanity by showing them the political conflict in Sierra Leone more intimately. Moreover, the misleading ending of the film only makes matters worse. So the question remains to what extent does a motion picture like Blood Diamond capture the complexities of political conflict? It can be said that that film accurately captures the complexities of the political conflict in Sierra Leone but does not intimately interpret those complexities to an adequate extent.
Works Cited
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