When you have a child that is less than one-year old, you don’t have that many opportunities to go to the movies. And when you do get to go, you usually want to see something light-hearted and fun since you are probably exhausted and just happy to have a couple of hours with no responsibilities. Thus, it was somewhat of a tough sell to get my wife to agree to see Blood Diamond last weekend even with Leo headlining.
But we went and I couldn’t help but agree midway through when she turned to me and said, “We should’ve seen Happy Feet.” It wasn’t that Blood Diamond isn’t a good movie, it was just that we are parents and rather than two hours without responsibility, Blood Diamond provided two hours of unrelenting intensity that made us think critically about the world we live in. That, of course under normal circumstances, is a good thing. And even for exhausted parents, I must admit, Blood Diamond was a worthwhile experience.
I was struck by several aspects of the movie. First, without giving too much away, the movie puts the viewer smack in the middle of a civil war in Africa, complete with images of atrocities – villages destroyed, innocents maimed. I always appreciate the ability of movies to bring these scenes to the average American viewer who may know vaguely that there are wars in Africa, but who does not appreciate the horror such wars cause for the majority of the populations there.
While Blood Diamond clearly depicts some of the warring African factions in a negative light, it presents a very strong indictment of the viewers themselves by bringing attention to the messy underbelly of the global diamond industry. If this indictment awakens the conscience of 1% of those who see the movie, it will have achieved its apparent goal.
Perhaps most interesting to me, the character played by Jennifer Connelly, a western journalist tracking the diamond industry in Africa, raises many questions about the role of western activists in foreign settings. Writing about the conflict, she feels a personal empowerment, but harbors no illusions that her words will really stop anything. She laments that perhaps her stories may induce a few sympathetic (and guilt-ridden?) westerners to write a check or two to an organization working in Africa, but that it is not possible to spark any real outrage. Discussing her own dissatisfaction with her western life and her inability to keep a boyfriend, she wonders if something is wrong with her, but concludes, “Maybe I just give a shit.” The implication, of course, is that the rest of us do not. And maybe she is right. How can one truly “give a shit” about the kind of terrible things we all know happen in Africa and go on with a normal American life? Unfortunately, this kind of attitude discourages those who care, but are not willing to put their life/family/career on the line to confront crises elsewhere, from acting at all. Certainly, there must be room in the activist community for those of us who “give a shit,” but on a less committed level. If activists cannot accept this reality, they threaten to make themselves irrelevant.
Based on this review, you may think Blood Diamond is simply a preachy plea to help Africa. What makes the movie so enjoyable, however, is an incredibly compelling story acted magnificently by Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Honsou. This is either a wonderful movie hidden inside an important message or an important message hidden inside a wonderful movie. Either way, Blood Diamond is a fine example of movies at their best – the art of telling a story while revealing a new perspective on the world such that the viewer must think about the world he returns to outside the theatre.
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
January 07, 2007
March 10, 2006
Crash
When I saw Crash last spring, I wrote a review of what I thought was one of the more interesting movies I'd seen in a while. When Crash won Best Picture on Sunday, I thought that review would be a good column this week. So, here it is:
On a drizzly Sunday afternoon, Meggan and I hiked across the Boston Common to catch a matinee showing of Paul Haggis’s (“Million-Dollar Baby”) latest film, “Crash.” The cinema was our preferred antidote to stressful weeks at work (hers, not mine) and uncooperative weekend weather (30 degrees in May?!). If what we sought was a pleasant escape, however, our choice of “Crash” was disastrous. Of all the things that this movie is - and there is much good about it - pleasant is not one of them.
After the film, Meggan turned to me. “I didn’t think I could have been any more depressed. But,” she sighed, “I was wrong.”
Having enjoyed the movie, I felt the need to defend it, but the more I thought about the movie, the less certain I became that I liked it. And maybe that was the point.
Without spoiling anything, “Crash” depicts a 36-hour period when the lives of a dozen Angelinos of varying race and ethnicity crash into one another. There is not one single crash, but the many little crashes of daily life. However, underlying each crash is a single theme - stereotypes, bigotry, and cultural misunderstanding. Some crashes end tragically, while others offer hope, but each provides a scathing critique of racism in Los Angeles. Watching racism play itself out should not be pleasant. And it wasn’t.
As a film, it was uneven. Haggis was very effective depicting how quickly events can escalate based on misconceptions fueled by cultural differences, and there were several incredibly dramatic, well-crafted, and anxious scenes where Haggis was at his best in this, his directorial debut. But there were many moments when characters speechified. Barely five minutes passed between diatribes on race or ethnicity and such speeches came out of characters mouths seemingly out of nowhere. On their own, the speeches were interesting, but they were not believable dialogue.
To me, the film was Haggis’s attempt at showing the ramifications of prejudices. “Look what happens when we make decisions based on stereotypes,” the movie says. “It sucks, doesn’t it?” But Meggan took an entirely different message, and some end-of-weekend blues, with her: “We all hate each other and that’s that.”
Perhaps Haggis was too convincing, providing a glimpse of this problem without even the suggestion of a solution. This, however, seems to be the necessary first step that Haggis is urging us to take: until a problem is glimpsed and acknowledged, there will certainly be no solution. This is where the film succeeds - it forces viewers to acknowledge the problem, thus sparking discussion (hopefully) that could lead to a solution. That we remain stalled at this first step of recovery - acknowledgment - is more a failure of ourselves than a problem with the movie.
The problem with “Crash,” though, is that it reeks of the very problem - stereotyping - that is seeks to confront. We meet a stereotypical image-conscious, opportunistic district attorney and his angry, bigoted wife. We see a race-obsessed young black male with corn rows who is a carjacker, a racist LA cop, and a loud, overweight black woman. Although there are attempts to humanize all the characters, the reliance on stereotyped characters combined with their inability to talk about anything but racism, affirmative action, or discrimination undermines the film and reinforces the very stereotypes it critiques.
That being said, there is plenty to chew on after “Crash,” an accomplishment in itself and perhaps Haggis’s single goal. The dialogue the movie seeks to create, perhaps, is the solution Haggis is offering. There are no good characters or bad characters, but just characters attempting to exist in a city filled with many types of people who often misunderstand and even hate each other. We see how good intentions mean little. Simply doing the right thing does not make one immune from succumbing to despicable acts in a racist society. Likewise, being racist does not prevent one from being a good son or a hero. By unfolding these scenarios in such detail, Haggis forces us to evaluate the character based not only upon their unreasonable biases, but also on their reasonable fears and the very real pressures of their families or careers. Offering these glimpses of life in another’s shoes, the movie begins a conversation that it cannot, and does not attempt to, complete. Does that make it a bad movie? Not at all. Just unpleasant and not the right pick on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
On a drizzly Sunday afternoon, Meggan and I hiked across the Boston Common to catch a matinee showing of Paul Haggis’s (“Million-Dollar Baby”) latest film, “Crash.” The cinema was our preferred antidote to stressful weeks at work (hers, not mine) and uncooperative weekend weather (30 degrees in May?!). If what we sought was a pleasant escape, however, our choice of “Crash” was disastrous. Of all the things that this movie is - and there is much good about it - pleasant is not one of them.
After the film, Meggan turned to me. “I didn’t think I could have been any more depressed. But,” she sighed, “I was wrong.”
Having enjoyed the movie, I felt the need to defend it, but the more I thought about the movie, the less certain I became that I liked it. And maybe that was the point.
Without spoiling anything, “Crash” depicts a 36-hour period when the lives of a dozen Angelinos of varying race and ethnicity crash into one another. There is not one single crash, but the many little crashes of daily life. However, underlying each crash is a single theme - stereotypes, bigotry, and cultural misunderstanding. Some crashes end tragically, while others offer hope, but each provides a scathing critique of racism in Los Angeles. Watching racism play itself out should not be pleasant. And it wasn’t.
As a film, it was uneven. Haggis was very effective depicting how quickly events can escalate based on misconceptions fueled by cultural differences, and there were several incredibly dramatic, well-crafted, and anxious scenes where Haggis was at his best in this, his directorial debut. But there were many moments when characters speechified. Barely five minutes passed between diatribes on race or ethnicity and such speeches came out of characters mouths seemingly out of nowhere. On their own, the speeches were interesting, but they were not believable dialogue.
To me, the film was Haggis’s attempt at showing the ramifications of prejudices. “Look what happens when we make decisions based on stereotypes,” the movie says. “It sucks, doesn’t it?” But Meggan took an entirely different message, and some end-of-weekend blues, with her: “We all hate each other and that’s that.”
Perhaps Haggis was too convincing, providing a glimpse of this problem without even the suggestion of a solution. This, however, seems to be the necessary first step that Haggis is urging us to take: until a problem is glimpsed and acknowledged, there will certainly be no solution. This is where the film succeeds - it forces viewers to acknowledge the problem, thus sparking discussion (hopefully) that could lead to a solution. That we remain stalled at this first step of recovery - acknowledgment - is more a failure of ourselves than a problem with the movie.
The problem with “Crash,” though, is that it reeks of the very problem - stereotyping - that is seeks to confront. We meet a stereotypical image-conscious, opportunistic district attorney and his angry, bigoted wife. We see a race-obsessed young black male with corn rows who is a carjacker, a racist LA cop, and a loud, overweight black woman. Although there are attempts to humanize all the characters, the reliance on stereotyped characters combined with their inability to talk about anything but racism, affirmative action, or discrimination undermines the film and reinforces the very stereotypes it critiques.
That being said, there is plenty to chew on after “Crash,” an accomplishment in itself and perhaps Haggis’s single goal. The dialogue the movie seeks to create, perhaps, is the solution Haggis is offering. There are no good characters or bad characters, but just characters attempting to exist in a city filled with many types of people who often misunderstand and even hate each other. We see how good intentions mean little. Simply doing the right thing does not make one immune from succumbing to despicable acts in a racist society. Likewise, being racist does not prevent one from being a good son or a hero. By unfolding these scenarios in such detail, Haggis forces us to evaluate the character based not only upon their unreasonable biases, but also on their reasonable fears and the very real pressures of their families or careers. Offering these glimpses of life in another’s shoes, the movie begins a conversation that it cannot, and does not attempt to, complete. Does that make it a bad movie? Not at all. Just unpleasant and not the right pick on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
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