I watched "Blood Diamond" over the weekend... spectacular film... and quite entertaining when diCaprio slips back and forth between South African and American accents...
the violence didn't get to me... the boys losing their hands didn't get me... the drug use and language didn't get to me... the 8 year olds with machine guns didn't get to me... the blankness in the eyes of the leading actors when faced with death didn't get to me... it was all in the scenery... eastern Africa (according to the film, not personal experience, unfortunately) is beautiful... the vast expansion of land with few obvious signs of life, but when one looks closer, so much is there... the hills, the rivers, the bush and jungles, the culture, the people... when their faces weren't etched with fear, joy and love were present... hard living, but still, living...
but the destruction, the greed, the lack of caring about the destruction of that land, that life, those people, that creation... that's what gets me...
regardless of the price, the reward, the object in hand, could you look someone in the eye, and take away their life?
not necessarily their breathing, walking life, but also their farm, their family, their faith, their job, their home, their purpose, their gifts, their smile, their capacity to see a sunset and not dread the next sunrise...
we don't see it... we see billboards and tv ads and announcements on the news about wars in the middle east, AIDs in africa, and starving kids around the world... we ignore the shootings in our neighborhoods, the poor on our streets, and the homeless in our alleys... we change channels, flip the page, or maybe send a check, but we still own 8 pairs of black shoes, a tv in each room, a car for each person, and fancy over the sparkling diamonds in the window, to draw on the movie's point...
i know it was a film, but what's wrong with my life if i expect to see the militia take over a village and kill everyone in it? if a million people in a refuge camp doens't break my heart? i've met people who've fled from places like this... and they were 14... the world is not right...
what will we do to change that?
"we make these movies... two hours of micro-reality... how they move me... til i can't feel this tragedy..." - jeremy erickson. great man, check his story and music out
1 comment:
Traced your link to my site and spent some time reading. Very good read. And I appreciate the link. But for the life of me, I can't quite place who I might know in Edinburg.
Your writing is poetic. It aches AND hopes. I like it.
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