‘They said it came from the heart of the earth, to test the heart of the man’. It was the first lines in this movie trailer and also, gave the audiences a concept about this movie's issue. As we can see, the army forced black people to collect diamond in a river, however, when they successfully find a rare diamond in that muddy river, they could not own the diamond. They had to hang out what they had discovered, and as we can image, they would not have any chance to share any benefit from the diamond and could not get any reward. The black man who found a rare pink diamond in the trailer was called Solomon. He tried to own this diamond as his fortune secretly and decided to pretend that he didn’t discover anything in the muddy river. However, the guarder observed his attempt and from then on, Solomon’s destiny was wholly changed.
Solomon wanted to use the diamond to support his family departing from the poverty and the life style as slave. For Danny, that rare pink diamond was such a great chance that could help him to being rich. And for the army, they needed that diamond for exchanging fortune, and used that enormous fortune to support their army. For three different reasons, this diamond became a fatal attraction. In this movie, I regarded Solomon as an impression of the poor, who tried to improve his life but exploited by power group. The army was regarded as that power group which forced the poor to be their slaves and made them to sink into the poverty. On top of that, I regard Danny as the rich who desire for power and fortune to fulfill his psychological poverty.
In the movie, Solomon tried any way to keep that diamond just as the poor’s hard working. He said lines to express anguish toward the unfair society and army’s cruelty. ‘My family, my home, I could lost everything.’ Army’s exploitation was the society’s unfriendly environment toward the poor. The poor’s poverty was because they didn’t have power to protect their right and respect. Who can get the power and the right of management, and then who can control the economy condition. The rich didn’t satisfy with their life, their psychological poverty cause their pursuit of fortune.
You use comparison to compare three kinds of man in the movie "Blood Diamond". Solomon, the army and Danny are symbols: you associate them with the poor, the power group and rich. I think it is very well to have the idea to connect the movie to the reality. It will be even better if you can have more you own opinions.
回覆刪除You had talked about things you wanted to say in the movie, and talked about your oponions about this. I think maybe you can discuss about more things about the oppose side against Solomon to make the gap between them more obvious.
回覆刪除This annotation reminds me of Bob Black’s article, “The Abolition of Work.” Any work, for example, the service industry (服務業), plus the core believe that men are obligated to work could, and for most times would result in the exploitation of those who work. A typical worker who sells food at the Night snack avenue (宵夜街) wakes up at 4’o clock in the morning to go to the traditional market (青果市場), after working for 10 to 12 hours, they need an extra one to two hours after they are closed to prepare for the food material the next day. In addition, working five to six days a week leaves them no time to think about anything that they once dreamed of. A life without spare times and dreams are horrible, though they seemed to gradually become numb, just as the black labor depicted in the movie Blood Diamond.
回覆刪除A delicious fried chicken steak may be likened to the blood diamond; so tempting yet so deadly. As a chicken steak is consumed, so is the life of the chicken steak vendor. It will be easier if you try to imagine a life where you repeat standing in front of the hot stove all day, summer and winter for 30 years (宵夜街街尾滷味). Life as a man has indeed entails hardship and all the ups-and-downs that make him/ her mature, but is “work” exploitation or the pain from which one learns and enjoys thereafter?
There are too many miseries in Taiwan, we may contrast examples from somewhere else in the world, but no doubt there are plenty of examples just around everyone of us in Taiwan.