Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond tells the story of Solomon, a local fisherman from Sierra Leone, and Archer, a white Rhodesian diamond smuggler, and the enormous pink diamond that is their ticket out of the civil war of the 90’s. With its fair share of Rebels, smugglers and violence the film portrays the struggles of an African country in the midst of a bloody conflict. It also does an excellent job of contrasting the conditions in which diamonds are harvested and the world in which they are enjoyed.

The first thing to realize in such a discussion is that each society or culture experiences and interprets suffering differently.

For example one of the subplots of the film is the political and humanitarian struggle to reduce the amount of “conflict” diamonds that are sold around the world to fund violence and oppression. This could be considered the “Western” approach. In it there is a direct link to the money the Rebels receive from diamonds and their ability to purchase arms and fund rebellion, therefore by cutting off the flow of money you also stop the conflict. The shortcomings to this line of argumentation are voiced in the movie when people talk about how “First it was slaves, then it was oil and now it is diamonds”, the exploitation of Africa’s resources is not tied to a single resource but rather the way in which all of its resources are viewed by all parties involved.

In contrast to this the “African” view can be understood by a line that is repeated several times throughout the film, “T.I.A.”. This Is Africa. Or in other words, whatever we have or whatever we do does not mean a thing because this is Africa and people will always be exploited and therefore suffering is not something we have the luxury of living without.

So we have two responses to suffering: the first a rational solution to the problems of Africa, the second a lived response to violence and oppression. One might just site this as an example of how two different cultures view suffering but I want more out of it than a simple both/and. I want to hold the two in tension and I think I can do that when I view the situation in light of Jesus’ ministry and His suffering. In His ministry He came to heal the sick and proclaim justice to the oppressed and yet at the same time these things were not fulfilled without His painful crucifixion. If we only have the ministry than Jesus is a good teacher. If we only have the crucifixion than He is a Martyr. Only when we have both is Jesus the Son of God. In this way Jesus response to and experience of suffering can act like a bridge in situations such as these.

300

300 is a highly stylized telling of the 300 Spartans of Thermopylae in 480 BC who confronted the enormous army of the Persians. If you haven’t already, I would suggest you go see the movie because it is one of the most original films of recent memory. With that said I should also mention that it is extremely violent and therefore not suitably for all viewers, luckily the discussion below gives away no spoilers of the plot nor does it require that you have actually seen the movie.

300 uses computer graphics fundamentally different than most other films. Whereas computer graphics in Star Wars and most other films are used to make fake things look real, in 300 they are used to make real things look fake.

In most films technology is meant to flow seamlessly into the story so that the viewer is not aware of it. If the viewer becomes aware of the illusion the suspension of reality is broken and the story is lost. 300 on the other hand accepts that it is a story and heightens that story through its use of computer graphics. The director Zack Snyder comments on the narrator of the film by saying, “Dilios is a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth”.

What if the Church was able to use technology in new ways like 300?

For example the most ubiquitous use of technology in Churches today is the digital projector. For most it serves as a digital bulletin, portraying the exact same information that is contained in those little printed brochures that you get as you walk in. So again like in most films technology is replicating something we already have to make it cheaper and prettier.

So how we can we use technology in a new way?

I don’t really have an answer to this. The one thing I do know is that movies like 300 and Sin City were not just dreamed up by one person. Both films share the same source material, graphic novels by Frank Miller. But I have never read any of them and chances are neither have the majority of the people reading this (at least before the movies came out). That is because it took collaboration with directors, writers and producers to distribute Frank’s stories to larger audiences. So my only thought is that there are really great things being created by the theological “graphic novelists” of the world and perhaps we can use technology to both connect them with the community and enhance the story they are telling. I feel like the digital community of the internet can and is changing the shape and nature of theology but I am not sure exactly what that looks like.

So what are your ideas?

a blog is born

First I think there are too many blogs out there, just a personal pet peeve of mine and one that I strove to fight against for a long time, but alas here I am.

With that in mind I recently read a friend’s blog and he mentioned that blogging has become a spiritual discipline for him. Hmm?

Back up six months. I took a class called “Theology and Film” and then later “Art, Cinema and Theology in Dialogue” in both I was required to write a journal response to each film watched. These journals became an area which both sharpened my ability to critically analyze film and also a practice in creative theology inspired by film. In an idealistic way I thought I could keep up the practice of journaling about each film I saw and putting it into dialogue with theology. Needless to say that didn’t happen

Fast forward to March of 2007, I went to see the flick “300” with two of my manliest friends and as we walk back from the theater to our respective homes I start thinking about the use of computer graphics in the film and how that is related to the way in which I loved the film and also in my opinion an application for theology (see the next post). This thought stays in my head the rest of the next day and I tell everyone around the office about it and then I realize that this is the type of thought I should be writing down, like in my film journals for my classes but of course I am not writing those journals anymore, oh well.

Then I connected the idea of blogging as a spiritual discipline with my desire to continue a deliberate and meaningful discussion between theology and film and thus this blog was born.