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Blood DiamondOften when you watch a film and find it enjoyable, it seems somewhat wrong to find it enoyable. This is because the subject matter is not supposed to leave you feeling happy - it's meant to provoke certain feelings. While we can say that the film is enjoyable, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's content is. That applies to this film.
It's set in Sierra Leone in 1992, during a short-lived coup in which Valentine Strasser became the world's youngest head of state. One of the country's major exports is diamonds - though the international diamond market has placed an embargo on diamonds being nought from conflicting nations, lest they should be funding said conflicts. The diamond trade, however, prevails, albeit illegally. Leonardo DiCaprio, a South African, is caught up in the middle of this. Also entwined is Djimon Hounsou, who has found a quite large diamond in a mine in which he's been forced to work, but has hidden it.
To add to his troubles, soldiers have taken away his wife and daughter, and recruited his son for their army. After the paths of DiCaprio and Hounsou cross, along with that of journalist Jennifer Connelly, Hounsou attempts to get back both his diamond and his family. The one thing that's a constant annoyance is DiCaprio's attempt at a South African accent, and as someone who has spent nine and a half years in Southern Africa, I know a bad South African accent when I hear one.
The brutality of the soldiers is partly what makes this film. They recruit children for their armies, chop of people's hands to prevent them from voting; as I said earlier, it's not something to be celebrated, but in a maudlin way, that's what makes it enjoyable. You know that your senses and emotions have been stimulated, altered even, while watching the film, to such an extent that you're glad that you took the time to do it.
Part The Last King of Scotland, part The Master of the Game, it'll make you think - and you'll be glad that it has.
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