Kathmandu:

Director Edward Zwick, whose previous outing was The Last Samurai, demonstrates in Blood Diamond that an adventure, action, thriller can have searing messages about the nature of conflict, the trauma of child soldiers and yet be entertainment. That the entertainment makes you think is good, but the sheer horror of civil war and its consequences and how Africa has always had exploitable wealth that has led to brutality is a powerful parallel to the adventure story.

As Premiere writer Glenn Klenny says, “The point is made that the more xploitable ‘resources’ an African country is found to have, the more suffering that country’s population will undergo as its labour force as well as its resources are exploited. That this should not be the case is a given. That Blood Diamond penetratingly, and sometimes punishingly, shows precisely how this is the case without ever turning into some kind of lecture is its triumph.”

Two Oscar nominations have come from Blood Diamond. And both are well-deserved. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a cynical cheerful mercenary whose mantra is ‘TIA’ — This Is Africa with which he justifies an existence of amoral wheeling and dealing and is out to do his last score in Africa, which is to get a huge diamond hidden by a noble African played by Djimon Hounsou (also Oscar nominated) and the two unlikely ‘partners’ run through war torn Sierra Leone helped by journalist Jennifer Connelly.

Says critic Kit Bowen, “If you aren’t quite sure what a conflict, or ‘blood’ diamond is, they are stones that have been smuggled out of countries at war, which are then used as a way to pay for more arms, increasing the death toll and violence in the region.

DiCaprio once again plays an antihero with a very colloquial South African accent. It’s a bit jarring at first, as if the actor is trying to do a British accent but not very well. Then you realise how spot-on it actually is and marvel at the nuances DiCaprio incorporates into the performance. Matching him step for step is Oscar-nominee Hounsou as the tortured Solomon. Of course, it’s through his eyes we see just how horrific the situation is, and Solomon’s quiet determination to get his family back is etched over the actor’s chiselled features. Connelly is no slouch either, looking tousled and gorgeous, despite the hell she goes through. But a noted standout is Kagiso Kuypers, who — in his debut performance — plays Solomon’s young son, taken by the rebels and forced to become a killing machine. It just gives you shivers.”

Adds writer Bret Fetzer, “DiCaprio is compelling because he never flinches from his character’s utter ruthlessness, but ends up where his desperate greed has led him. Hounsou and Connelly, though saddled with all the moral and political speeches, rise above the cant and keep the movie’s treacherously formulaic plot rooted in human characters. But in the end, the story won’t stick with you as much as the dead stillness in the child soldiers’ eyes; the horror of African civil strife refuses to be contained by Blood Diamond’s uplifting message — and the movie is all the more potent as a result.”

Through the movie we learn that the blood stained soil of Africa draws and never lets go of people. Even a white man who says, “Without me you are just another black man in Africa”, is drawn to the continent’s history represented by the soil, and in the end it draws him as much as it does the native, so much so that it is difficult to tell whose land it is.