Blood Diamond Review

Wrote this for the MSRIT Movie Club.

BLOOD DIAMOND (2006)

Director:  Edward Zwick

It is the gripping story of the life threatening quest for a rare diamond. Set in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s during the civil war, Blood Diamond shares the story of the lives of two very different men, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) brought together by one valuable diamond. It was found and then hidden by Vandy when he was separated from his family and forced to work in the RUF mines. But its existence did not remain a secret. For diamond smuggler Archer, the diamond’s value in the black market would contribute financial help for the RUF rebels’ artillery, giving him his ticket to leave the country. For Vandy it meant freedom and being reunited with his family.

The issue portrayed in the movie, along with the illegal trade of diamonds, is the heartless recruit of child soldiers by the rebels. Among the child soldiers is the Dia Vandy (Kagiso Kuypers), the son of Solomon, so forcefully ingrained with the brutal idealisms of the RUF rebels that family love is initially overpowered by the RUF brainwashing when he is reunited with his father.

What is a good movie without a little romance, even if it is as faint as it is in this movie? The story brings in another character, Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), and American journalist visiting Africa to research and stop illegal diamond trade. She gets caught in this diamond quest and uses her sources to help Archer and Vandy. The short time spent with Archer forms a deeper connection between. Although no love is expressed verbally both feel a need for the other.

The movie very cleverly ties the two extremes of the story; love for money and love for family with the right amount of suspense, violence, emotion, pain, joy and adventure to keep one entertained throughout the movie. The performance of the risk-it-all fatherly love of the character played by Hounsou and the selfish determined character played by DiCaprio is certainly worth a standing ovation. I also like the contrasts seen between the rural settings in Africa to the highfaluting settings of London.

When analysing the content of the movie, it is apparent that the main theme of the movie is adventure and not the social issues concerned. Although the issues are brought out, I feel that the magnitude of the harshness of the war and extent of the bribery are not given justice in the movie.

About the ending of the movie, it provides a happy ending for viewers to feel good about as well as a sad side, which shows that there is not all happiness in war. Although the phone call to Maddy made by Archer before his death on the top of a mountain seemed a little clichéd, the abrupt end to a potential romance added an interesting twist to the movie.

All in all, it is a movie I would highly recommend, for its praises outnumber its flaws by far.

July 4, 2008

Day 2 at the LFA.

Along the Thames

With some time to spare before the first event on my list for the day, I spent the morning at Westminster. I marvelled at the architecture of the House of Parliament and Big Ben and then walked down to the abbey. I first went into a small little church next to Westmister abbey and although photography was not allowed, I managed to get a couple of pictures of the interiors with the camera on my lap!

July 3, 2008

I was really looking forward to attending the London Festival of Architecture 2008-a month long festival packed with hundreds of different events around the city ranging from exhibitions, building tours, cycling tours, open studios, etc. I stumbled upon the site while looking at a site about free things to do in London.


I traveled for the first time by myself in the underground. It was a lot of fun and as long as I had my tube map and London street guide I would be fine. (felt like I was walking on the Monopoly board!)

London- the city and the parks

June, 2008

June 27


The long awaited for trip. Just one week after wretched exams and submissions and all my bags are packed and I'm ready to go for a 5 week holiday to England.


The journey was not exactly memorable. I had travelled alone before, but this was minus the benefits of unaccompanied travel. I watched 3 movies back-to-back; The Kite Runner, The other Boleyn Girl and P.S, I Love You and landed at Terminal 5 through grey clouds and cold rain- typical English weather.


What I remember from the next few days:


~Sleeping from 3 on Saturday afternoon till 7 the next morning curled up in the duvet of the top bunk.
~Strawberry picking on Sunday morning- Stuffed myself with strawberries, raspberries and tayberries.
~Being united with my laptop.
~Jumping on the trampoline!
~Eloise locking herself in the house the day I was babysitting her. I had to climb over the side gate (not that easy!) to get to the back door which, thankfully was not locked. Surprisingly, I was asked to look after all 3 girls by myself on several occasions after that incident!
~Jason choking with laughter, unable to breathe at Jo and my first attempts at the dance. My spastic hands!
~Losing in MAM- sorry girls. We never lose, do we? I completely take the blame-
I was blind:
Proof 1-
(thinking to myself): hey cool, Im out of yellow, and I have so many blues... maybe I should take the bid. Only later did I realise that this set didn't have yellow and had purple (It looked BLUE-ish) instead. This confused me throughout the ENTIRE game.
Proof 2-
I didn't realise that I had the Tiger till the second last hand. I'm telling you, it looked like the bull and where on the card does it say 'Tiger' in capital letters?
I also suffered temporary Alzheimer's and lost count of all cards. Where did 30 trumps go?
~Eating a mushroom Blintz. Very yummy!
~Punching 150 gold puzzle pieces.
~HAY FEVER!- finishing all the tissues in everybody's house!

Stationary and Stationery

Just the difference of one letter & yet these two words occupy two different extremes in the vast world of Architecture.

STATIONARY- unable to move, being fixed.

Being stationary in architectural terms refers to being mentally stationary, which causes the minds to freeze.

It is the frustration, when someone, expecting to be blown over by your creative mind, thrusts a seemingly scopeful proposition or even a simple question, but your mind is stationary and all that you can see in your mind is a crisp white sheet. This is a state of being mentally stationary.

It also refers to a more serious disease that takes more than time to cure. The disease that makes your mind so solidly fixed onto one set of ideas that in order to create something new and unique, you would have to jump over the hurdle of normalcy.

But it is the ease by which you overcome being stationary that defines you as an architect.

STATIONERY- writing material.

One change in the word and you are plunged into the molten core of Architecture!

The butter sheets, pencils, cartridge sheets, Rotring pens, paint, set squares, stumping powder… The list is endless!

Even though AutoCAD, 3Dmax and the rest of their software siblings bask in the limelight of being the backbones of Architecture, it is the pencils shavings, crusty paint palates, and the wad of crumpled butter sheets with undecipherable scribbles, without which ideas would remain ideas.

Can you keep track of the time and money spent at the stationery shop? Have you ever wished that someone would give you a bundle of handmade sheets as a birthday present? Have you ever thought about how many erasers you use in a year? The answers to these questions will prove how important stationery is to you.

So how do I bring together two outwardly similar words- one a mental disease and the other a primary necessity? I’ll leave that to you. But, have you ever imagined how stationary you would be without your stationery? :)

(wrote for Ramaiah archi magazine)

1st Semester

Ist Semester (September- December)

This is the first model we had to make for design workshop class. The theme was lines and intersecting planes composed in a space of a 1" cube. It was a 3 hour class and at the end of it, I had a few scribbles on my butter sheet and had managed to bend a bit of wire into ONE petal. Yup, that’s all I did in 3 hours (I spent most of that time laughing. Shuwana's "madness" had already begun to have ill-effects on me or vice-versa or was it just madness resonating between us, we shall never know) BUT, I had an idea and could imagine every detail of it in my mind. It was going to be an abstract model of a hibiscus or a gul-mohar flower. Thankfully we had until next class to have it finished (there were even people submitting it in December before final submissions!). Working on it was a nightmare!!! The frustration of winding that shoe-lace-like material around and round and round would have caused me to fling the whole thing out of the window had not this lovely course allowed me to do work in front of the TV! That was a nice movie... oh look, I'm almost done!

Pottery Workshop- This was lots of fun. A local potter came in along with his wheel. It was a challenge trying to explain to him what I wanted to do (shame on me for not knowing the local language!) I made most of it on the wheel, but the hole, I had to do with my fingers.... On the right are a few of the other's pots and Maria's head (or more precisely- the head that Maria made. lol) after we varnished them.

Carpentry Workshop: I missed the actual workshop at college, but the following week my room became a temporary carpentry workshop! I was initially sawing with a hack saw blade (yes just the blade... don't know where the handle disappeared to!). Then, noticing that my fingers were turning blue and that I would probably not be able to lift my arm the next morning, took out THE ELECTRIC HAND SAW. It was freaking heavy, and for fear of losing a finger or an arm or even a leg for all I know, happily accepted the help of my Dad. I love laminate; it covers oh so many mistakes. And the red paint adds a very delightful touch! ;)

                 

I don't know why I took a picture of my colour chart. This was the day before submissions and I had wasted so much time doing this simply because it was fun! Especially like the blue swirly thing.

I suddenly realised that I was one model short and so managed to make this in about 15 minutes! Supposed to be RHYTHM and I managed to include rhythm in colour, shape, size, texture and direction. (looks like something I could have made when I was 6, nevertheless I still like it!)

I SO wish I had taken more pictures! Then again, there's always next semester (and another 8 more after that).

p.s. Lots of fun pictures were taken from our Building Construction workshop in the rain... but they are all over the place i.e. with lots of people and I only have a few that I downloaded (because somebody forgot to take their camera... tch tch tch).

WORLD PEACE!

I was one of those girls who loved dressing up and parading up and down my imaginary catwalk pretending to be competing for a crown, and then smiling at myself in the mirror as I placed the sparkliest hairband I could find, on my head.

I still watch those pageants, but its not the gowns, the gaits, the smiles or the hairstyles that grab my attention. No, what catches my eye, or lets say my ear are their SPEECHES! (or whatever you call them- the part where they open their mouths and a sound comes out which is not a giggle)

I was watching Miss. World 2007 last month. When speaking about their "Beauty with a purpose" project, Miss. Hong Kong China, Kayi Cheung said with the sweetest smile ever, "It makes me very very happy, when I make old people very very happy." She is representing her country, for crying out loud. Did she honestly think that that would warm people's hearts? She's 23, not some 6 year old who helped an old lady cross the road!

Then to Miss. Peoples Republic of China, Zhang Zilin, the question, "What is your aim in life?" "My aim in life is to carry the torch at the Olympics next year."Perhaps she's received a vision that her life will end at 23 and that the only thing she can possibly do to leave a mark on the world is to be the one to carry the torch at the Olympics next year. Poor thing! Lets all hope she gets to fulfil her dream and manages not to trip as runs with her 4" heels. (She won the title of Miss. World 2007 by the way, well obviously with such an innovative goal!!)

Now, what was that phrase that resonates through these pageants? Oh yes- WORLD PEACE. What do you wish for in this world? World Peace. What do you want the world to pray for? World Peace. If you could bring about a change in this world, what would it be? World Peace. If the first 14 finalists don't say it, you can count on the 15th one to say it.

So, they wish for World Peace- what do they aim for?- eradicating poverty???!!! Yes, I'm not joking, that's what they say. But that's the most brilliant aim, so whats wrong with that?

Well, I would think, if that was really their aim in life, they would be working their toes off studying economics or sociology or working as a missionary in some third world country and not wasting the past year filing their toe nails and curling their eyelashes on a low-carb diet posing in front of a camera and practicing their speeches. (yes, I'm rolling my eyes)

Ok, fine. Say, they want to work on their aims after they win. I mean, they have certain responsibilities when they are in possession of the crown. But, (inhale) for that they have to win and to win they have to beat 80 other contestants and to get to the finals in the first place, they would have to win the Miss. (country's name) crown and to get that they would have to beat 30 odd finalists in their own country and to be in their country's final, they would have had to be shortlisted from the thousands who sent in their picture and bio data!(that was a long sentence, inhale) So, when considering the options available to achieve this dream, Miss. (World/Universe/Earth.... whatever else there is) is not the most promising one.

BUT, what if you do actually win? Then yes, you actually do get to do something. I've seen those pictures- Miss.World cutting the ribbon to inaugurate some health centre, Miss.World carrying a poor malnourished Indian child while she is wearing a pair of Gucci sun-glasses and carrying a Chanel handbag, Miss.World holding hands with an AIDS infected woman before being whisked off in her private jet to attend a fashion show at Milan.

Hmmmmmm.. how do I end this article? I'm not usually so negative. They are very beautiful women. Their fashion artists definitely have good taste in colours and style and their personal trainers do excellent jobs in perfecting their stride and postures and I've always wondered how those judges narrow it down to one!

adios!

p.s. I still love dressing up!!!! ;)