POLITICALLY ENGAGED `DIAMOND' ENTERTAINS, EDUCATES WITH ROUGHNESS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Leonardo DiCaprio is well-known for his environmental activism.

Djimon Hounsou's first big role was in the socially conscious history lesson ``Amistad.''

Director Edward Zwick has a thing for issue-oriented action movies (``Courage Under Fire,'' ``The Siege,'' ``Glory'').

So when these guys and others got together to make a movie about African civil wars and the corrupt business practices that drive them, it was natural enough to assume that ``Blood Diamond'' would have serious themes. But would it be entertaining?

Especially since the film, which is set in Sierra Leone a few years back, doesn't shy away from the uglier aspects of recent West African conflicts: brutal combat, young boys kidnapped and brainwashed into becoming conscienceless child soldiers, mass amputations (some real victims of the practice appear in the film) and a refugee crisis of enormous scale.

Many of these terrible conflicts have been financed by the selling of conflict diamonds. Blood diamonds (as they are also known) are gems illegally mined in a war zone (usually by enslaved laborers) and sold clandestinely to unscrupulous multinational gem cartels.

The point ``Blood Diamond'' hopes to impress on audiences is that whenever buying a ring or necklace, we should try to make sure that it contains no bloodstained rocks.

But despite the film's moral center, the ``Blood Diamond'' filmmakers still wanted to make it entertaining.

``I wasn't personally going out seeking films with social or political messages just to do for the sake of doing it,'' said DiCaprio, who plays an amoral Zimbabwean gem smuggler, Archer, in the movie. ``It has to have entertainment value. It has to be a good movie and convey a message without the audience really feeling like they're being preached to. I felt like this script accomplished that, while being very representative of a huge issue in the world today: corporate responsibility.''

Director Zwick's longtime producing partner Marshall Herskovitz took the position that, if ``Blood Diamond'' told its story well, it didn't need to pander to notions of a good time at the movies.

``This issue that there is somehow a conflict between being politically engaged or important and being entertaining doesn't really apply to how Ed and I think about making movies,'' the producer said. ``You can tell a dark story, you can tell a sad story, you can tell a happy story. ... It's all entertaining in the sense that it's connecting and it makes people have feelings when they're watching it.''

That's true if you can get people to watch your politically engaged movie in the first place.

To its credit, Warner Bros. turned to Zwick, Herskovitz, fellow producer Paula Weinstein and screenwriter Charles Leavitt (``K-Pax''), among others, after the studio wasn't satisfied with an earlier take on the conflict diamond theme that all agreed was too Indiana Jones in its approach.

But while the new team took the story in a more realistic, historically informed direction, they also ensured that certain tried-and-true Hollywood conventions helped the horror and the lessons go down easier.

To that end, the greedy Archer learns to become a better man while trying to retrieve a big raw diamond hidden by Solomon (Hounsou), a selfless fisherman who only wants to reunite his displaced family and save his son from child soldier hell. A spunky American reporter, Maddy (Jennifer Connelly), gets dropped into the action to provide something of a love interest for Archer -- and to give lectures that don't necessarily feel like lectures because she's so hot- looking.

``We wanted to tell a story about the people,'' Weinstein explained.

``We didn't want a headline, say, `We're going to make a movie about diamonds.' This is, for us, a film about two Africans, the conflicts and what they have suffered and their ability to make a bond.''

In another, semi-audience-friendly move, the real horrors of the West African civil wars have been underplayed for date-night sensibilities -- though that hasn't prevented some from leaving early screenings of ``Blood Diamond'' appalled by the brutality they've just seen.

``I couldn't possibly sit and watch if we were to realistically duplicate the kind of things that happened in that conflict, and you couldn't possibly expect an audience to,'' Hounsou noted. ``So, in order to bring the awareness out, we had to tone it down tremendously. I mean, I wouldn't even give you an example of some of the atrocities that happened during that conflict.''

Hounsou's position

Hounsou hails from Benin, which is some 900 miles east of Sierra Leone. But even though it doesn't have diamonds or oil or other resources that outside interests covet, his country has had its share of corruption and civil strife.

To Hounsou, it isn't really a matter of whether or not films that address international problems are enjoyable. They are, simply, necessary.

``As an African, of course I feel a need and a strong desire to be involved in films that deal with important issues,'' Hounsou said. ``I think, nowadays, it is difficult because of our challenging lifestyles -- we're always running, running, running, chasing, chasing, chasing -- to really get an education the way we used to be educated through books and so forth. So, a lot of the education that we get today, I feel, is through movies. It's unfortunate, but also it is fortunate.

``The movie industry has a responsibility to tell compelling stories, stories that mean something, that change our lives and that make us reflect on the way we treat one another -- and how we view other people from different continents.''

Noble sentiments. And probably ones American moviegoers who only want escapist entertainment don't care to hear.

But don't complain to DiCaprio that his movie is too thoughtful or hard to take. He has no patience for attitudes that don't take the state of the world into consideration.

DiCaprio speaks

``What I was left with after spending time in Africa -- and this is not at all to sound trivial -- but there really was the power of the human spirit there.

``These people in Mozambique had been through a civil war for 30 years, four out of 10 people there supposedly have HIV or AIDS, the poverty rate ... but literally, people were still dancing in the streets. The joy and the energy that they exuded was unbelievable.

``It made me, when I came back home, not sort of want to listen to anyone's problems. I don't want to hear about what we as Americans have to deal with.''

Bob Strauss [phone]

[e-mail]

A matter of black and white?

Conventional Hollywood wisdom indicates that, if you're going to make a movie about Africa, you'd better put a major white character or two in it.

``Blood Diamond'' follows that logic. Though set in civil-war-torn Sierra Leone and featuring African actor Djimon Hounsou as a Mende villager, the film also stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly.

But although some recent evidence indicates that Caucasian inclusion is good for African movies at the box office, other statistics do not. Sure, last year's white-focused ``The Constant Gardener'' grossed more than $33 million, but the nearly all-black ``Hotel Rwanda'' made a tidy $23 million-plus the year before.

This year, ``Catch a Fire,'' the South African drama about a black freedom fighter, finished disappointingly in the low $4 millions. But ``The Last King of Scotland,'' in which Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is seen through the eyes of a Scottish protagonist, has earned even less. And both films are in the same-grosses ballpark as 2003's Angelina Jolie-starring ``Beyond Borders.''

While white actors may not necessarily help sell African movies, one thing is certain: White people who make African movies don't like questions about racial casting.

``Ironically, that's not where we live as artists,'' said ``Blood Diamond'' director Ed Zwick. ``We try to tell stories. It's for others who finance movies to make those decisions. This happened to be a story about two African men, and to tell one story without the other, it wouldn't have been the same story. It's not as if we had a story about a Mende fisherman and then said, `Oh, God, we need a white guy in it.' It's not a surprise that artists from a lot of different circumstances might be plugged into some collective unconscious that would lead them to focus on this place in this moment,'' Zwick added.

``I agree,'' was all DiCaprio had to say on the subject.

-- B.S.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Blood lust 

`Diamond' mines relationships between corporate greed, human suffering

(2) Djimon Hounsou, left, Jennifer Connelly and Leonardo DiCaprio star in ``Blood Diamond,'' a socially conscious film about illegal African gem mining.

(3) ZWICK

Box:

A matter of black and white? (see text)