by Rafael Broch
In the final years of the nineteenth century, King Leopold II of Belgium was busy plundering rubber from the Congo Free State. The officers of his Force Publique army, tasked with subjugating the local recalcitrants, developed a novel incentive: soldiers' bonuses would reflect the number of severed black hands they presented to their officers.
Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond, which depicts the continuation of barbarity for commercial gain in Africa, is simultaneously thrilling and troubling, but I found that the two sit together a little uncomfortably.
The story sets up a triangle of back-scratching characters amid jungle car chases, helicopter attacks and plenty of bullet dodging in Sierra Leone's civil war in the 1990s.
Blood Diamond makes clear to audiences of millions the brutal consequences of Western indifference to the origins of what we consume. That is a good achievement. As director Edward Zwick says, "There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive – in fact, each can fuel the other."
Unfortunately, the film itself is the clearest evidence suggesting otherwise. In its effort to capture big audiences, its writers have resorted to a set of all-too-familiar formulas. The expensive explosions, big-budget cast and obligatory love story make it a comfortable, easy watch when it shouldn't be. If awareness is the aim, then the audience ought to be moved but instead viewers cheer and sob at all the appropriate moments. The story is so audaciously adventurous that the "challenging themes" are ignored.
The tragedy of a country's brutalisation is glamorised, beautified and recast in a Hollywood mould. The music isn't authentically Central-West African, but a series of percussive stretches that barely conjure any of the atmosphere of this richly musical part of Africa. And the story is also enmeshed in implicit race depictions. The theme of redemption is poignant: the miraculously tough white hero wrestles with himself (and everyone else) and saves others repeatedly until he finally realises what is ultimately important at which point he sacrifices himself for his honest black sidekick, played by Djimon Hounsou. Hounsou's character is patronisingly simplistic – a humble husband and father with parochial values and no hope of large-scale heroism himself.
The story's nemeses? Also white: South African mercenaries trying to capture the pink jewel first, and the crooked diamond dealers in London. The black people who feature in the middle of these light-skinned opposites are either innocent victims or odious machete-wielding gangsters, and this condescending dichotomy is a misleading construct. It makes the film a dramatic projection onto Africa and its sufferings, rather than a realistic representation of it. The refrain of "TIA -This is Africa", used inanely by DiCaprio's character throughout, becomes irritatingly ironic.
Similarly, another problem with packing a film that addresses such serious, recent history with fictional adventure is that the story becomes totally implausible. In one instance, after fleeing from several bouts of point-blank machine-gun fire from the RUF, and negotiating their way preposterously past a frightening jungle tribe, the intrepid three arrive suddenly at an idyllic hang-out for ex-child soldiers. This fantasy both obscures and undermines the seriousness of the context.
Zwick also believes that "political awareness can be raised as much by entertainment as by rhetoric". While honestly entertaining, this film clouds the benefits of the authentic African representations that trickle over to the West: The literature of Ngugi wa'Thiong'o, the music of Fela Kuti, or Sorious Samura's documentaries, including Cry Freetown. These fragile portrayals are barged aside by the handsome white heroes and Californian romantic values which soon dissolve any awareness raised.
