DIRECTED BY Edward Zwick
STARRING Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly
US 2006 143 mins.
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH **
DIRECTED BY Davis Guggenheim
STARRING Al Gore (as himself)
US 2006 100 mins.
You can learn a lot at the movies – especially now, with Oscar season well underway. This is the time when studios churn out films like Blood Diamond, films they can’t release at any other time of year because the mass audience – the same audience they diligently try to keep stupid with sequels and horror movies – won’t stand for anything too ‘educational’. This is a film set in Africa, part of a currently trendy Hollywood sub-genre (see also Lord of War, The Constant Gardener and The Last King of Scotland), and it’s certainly educational. I heard quite a few concerned gasps and tongue-clicks at the screening I attended, a screening preceded by a trailer for the World Food Programme (which appears in the movie). I guess if it makes one middle-aged dowager look twice to make sure her diamonds aren’t ‘conflict diamonds’ – or even if it makes one pimply teen look up Sierra Leone on the map – the film would be worthwhile, and its merits as a film would be beside the point. Alas, good intentions don’t make it any easier to sit through.
Blood Diamond works on the Mary Poppins principle where a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down – except the sugar in this case is mindless carnage. The film feeds the audience’s bloodlust as you would an infant, to keep them quiet long enough for the grown-ups to engage in some grown-up talk. One good burst of violence – a village overrun by the rebels, or an urban shoot-out with civilian deaths and rocket-fire – should keep your audience happy for at least 20 minutes of improving educational stuff like a discussion of Good vs. Evil (is Man the former or the latter? in the end, our actions will define us) or a controversial question like “Were Africans better off under the whites?”. As in all the other Hollywood Africa movies, director Edward Zwick also points the finger at Western complicity; First World demand for the precious jewels leads to the death of Third World thousands, “none of whom has ever seen a diamond”.
Maybe Zwick thinks he’s being subversive, smuggling Important Lessons under the guise of an action movie. Maybe he just accepts this as the Hollywood trade-off: you can talk about weighty matters (at least during Oscar season), but only if you keep it entertaining for the popcorn-munchers. The trouble is that – maybe because his mind was elsewhere, viz. on the Important Lessons – the film isn’t a good action movie. In fact, it’s embarrassingly bad.
One barely knows where to begin, but let’s take the trio of lead characters. In the blue corner – blue for the Democrat ‘blue states’, which she surely belongs to – is intrepid reporter Jennifer Connelly. She wants to make a difference, and her eyes cloud with pain at the suffering of the native people; “An entire country made homeless,” she sighs at the sight of a refugee camp. In the white corner (white for purity of heart) is virtuous victim Djimon Hounsou. He’s a proud African; we know this because, when his son asks something in English, he replies in African – albeit just the first time, to make the point (they speak in English later). In the red corner, red for the red earth of Africa – coloured, so they say, by the blood of the dead – is Leonardo DiCaprio as Zimbabwean pretty-boy Danny Archer (“Orcher”), who is … what, exactly? A mercenary? “How about ‘soldier of fortune’?” he offers. “Or is that too much of a clich??” Perish the thought.
In fact, all three characters are clich?s. So is the evil rebel chief who cackles while chopping off the hands of native peasants so they won’t be able to vote (meanwhile explaining this in English, for our benefit). So is ‘Commander Zero’, who asks Leo for a satellite dish so he can watch Baywatch (a clich? that first appeared in Spy Game six years ago). So are the sepia inserts illustrating the diamond-harvesting process – from Africa to Antwerp to India – as someone gives a speech explaining it all. Other details are just cheesy. When Hounsou’s wife tells him their son has been captured by the rebels, she yells “They took him!” in African dialect (which is what they’ve been speaking) – then gratuitously yells it again in English, as if someone decided the line was too important to be left to subtitles. At the climax, when Djimon and his son are reunited in the midst of a shoot-out, the gunfire stops just long enough for them to share an emotional reunion – then instantly starts again once the scene has played out. Plotting isn’t Blood Diamond’s strong suit; I can think of many ways to contrive it so Leo and Djimon meet in the first place, but roping in a conveniently talkative rebel to babble out a stream of exposition is one of the lamest.
Still, the film does what it set out to do. The patient died, but the operation was a success. DiCaprio (excellent, as ever) and Hounsou have been Oscar-nominated. Zwick made the points he wanted to make about child soldiers and ‘conflict diamonds’. As for the audience … well, they get two and a half hours of melodrama, plus spectacular landscapes (including a glimpse of suspiciously inert, probably computerized elephants) and lavish production values. They may even have learned something.
Lots of stuff to learn in An Inconvenient Truth, also Oscar-nominated and the first documentary to play Cyprus cinemas since Fahrenheit 9/11. Actually, you probably know most of the information contained in the film already. The Earth’s atmosphere is hotter than it’s been in millennia; glaciers are melting all over the place. In short, global warming is real, and possibly the biggest problem facing humanity.
Is that it? What about the details? Alas, serious debaters won’t find much to chew on here. The film is a presentation by Al Gore, the man who “used to be the next President of the United States”. Mr. Gore is personable, smooth, even witty, but he doesn’t so much build a case as assume (correctly) that the case has been made. His charts and graphs make it clear a problem exists, but not much more. The only ones opposed to his stats (he says) are the “so-called skeptics”, whose arguments are never heard; apparently, claims Gore, they look at his figures and say “So what?”. That’s their argument, in its entirety.
This is slightly disingenuous. Just about everyone agrees climate change is real, but people still differ on how best to handle it. Some, like Bjorn Lomborg, argue that the problem is exaggerated, and the cost of curbing carbon emissions could be better spent on helping the world’s poor. There’s no space to go through the various theories, even if I knew them in detail; suffice to say a debate is taking place, which you wouldn’t necessarily glean from An Inconvenient Truth.
Instead you get Al Gore, celebrity mandarin, throwing out numbers with the airy assurance of one who knows he’s unlikely to be challenged, let alone disbelieved. Gore’s environmentalism goes way back, and he’s certainly no opportunist – but the film is still a campaign ad, burnishing the speaker’s “political will” and showing off his bona fides with the Chinese, the scientific community, the Kyoto Accord and other celebrity mandarins (“My friend, the late Carl Sagan…”). Bottom line? Inconvenient Truth is fascinating, but there’s still an Inconvenient Truth running through it – namely, that Al Gore isn’t an activist. Al Gore is a politician. And he still wants to be the next President of the United States.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few weeks. Some may be available
to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.play.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Prices quoted don’t include shipping. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
MIAMI VICE: Visually gorgeous, dramatically thin mood-piece comes in separate Theatrical Version and Director’s Cut (which is 7 minutes longer). Includes commentary by director Michael Mann. [US/UK]
THE ILLUSIONIST: Duelling-magicians drama, worth seeing for one reason only: to confirm the superiority of ‘The Prestige’. Well, and the reliably great Edward Norton. [US]
STRAY DOGS: Impressive Iranian drama about lost kids in Afghanistan, not to be confused with ‘Straw Dogs’ (!). No extras. [UK]
WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS: Spike Lee’s furious, 4-hour documentary on Hurricane Katrina. Includes commentary and a 105-minute epilogue. [US]
OLD FILMS
THE PREMIERE FRANK CAPRA COLLECTION: A good week for box-sets. Five classic films from director Capra (plus a feature-length documentary) for about $40. Not many extras, but films include the great ‘It Happened One Night’ (1934) and ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ (1939). Essential. [US]
ELIZABETH TAYLOR & RICHARD BURTON FILM COLLECTION: Four films, only one classic – ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ (1966) in a handsome 2-disc edition. Good value at under $40, at least for fans of Liz and Dick. [US]
MIKIO NARUSE: THREE FILMS: Unavailable for decades, Japanese master’s sharp but contemplative dramas are a film-buff’s delight: ‘Repast’ (1951), ‘Sound of the Mountain’ (1954) and ‘Flowing’ (1956). Extras include a 72-page booklet. [UK]
FORBIDDEN HOLLYWOOD, VOL. 1: A first dip into the naughty glories of pre-Production Code Hollywood (i.e. the early 30s), with three films: ‘Baby Face’ (1933), ‘Red-Headed Woman’ (1932) and the atypical ‘Waterloo Bridge’ (1931). Great stuff, a steal at $30. [US]
WIM WENDERS COLLECTION, VOL. 2: Second dip into German director’s oeuvre concentrates on more obscure stuff including ‘Wrong Movement’ (1974) and ‘Tokyo-Ga’ (1985). Strictly for completists, especially at a steep $80. [US]
SOMEONE TO LOVE (1987): A great, little-known ‘party’ movie, with Orson Welles in his final role. [US]
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE – THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON (1975): From the time when Chevy Chase was funny. [US]
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON (1966): Before Tom Cruise there was … Peter Graves? [US/UK]
STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES (1973-74): For the total Trekkie in your life. [UK]
