Nothing Lasts Forever
Jason Kohn's irreverent documentary puts the diamond industry under the microscope.
The title of Jason Kohn's film is a riposte to Dame Shirley Bassey’s celebrated assertion that diamonds are forever. Among those featured in this documentary is Stephen Lussier, the CEO of the famous jewellery business De Beers, but this is not a work which will give him pleasure. Investigating the world of those who deal in diamonds as merchandise, Kohn considers here both the old established tradition and the more recent extensive development of synthetic diamonds, but he casts a critical eye over both streams.
Although Aja Raden is the film’s only female contributor, she is central to it. Prominent as a jewellery designer herself, she is also a historian, a scientist and an author and she comes across as a vehement crusader anxious to spotlight all the lies that can be found in the diamond trade. Indeed, a central issue explored in this film is the intermingling of stones that were dug up and are real (although Raden will insist that origin stories about them can be among the lies told) and those that are synthetic. The Serbian gemologist Dusan Simic is on hand to describe the undisclosed mixing of both while the physicist John Janik discusses his work as a determined pioneer of techniques that can render synthetically produced stones indistinguishable from the real thing.
Although that gives the film a range of issues, it is questionable whether or not they provide the basis for a satisfactory feature film. While it is the case that Nothing Lasts Forever travels the world (Botswana, Mumbai and Las Vegas are among the many locations and there is special stress on China and India through the inclusion of longer sequences shot there), there is much repetition of the points made. One notes too that when Simic is about to address an audience the film fills in time by showing him having a haircut first (that’s one way to help extend the film to full feature length!). For many there will be information here that is revelatory, but even so the material feels better suited to an hour-long TV slot.
One feature unexpectedly present is the film’s sense of comedy, at its best when a participant involved in providing that does not intend any such thing. There is too a sense that all of the contributors here are doing what they are doing to further a career that will be financially profitable. For that reason, the comic highlight is provided by Martin Rapaport because he, as a key figure in this world with his own online diamond trading network, is continually declaring that money is not the issue and that the worth of diamonds lies in their emotional value to those who buy and receive them. But, if the film relishes its innate humour, it can also be imposed as when a sequence of dubious practices is accompanied by a soundtrack song entitled ‘Ho You Come Here Naughty Boy’. Indeed, the music generally is overdone, with the film’s original score by Logan Nelson proving far too persistent and irritatingly forceful. Despite the film’s title we never do get to hear from Dame Shirley, but on the other hand Kohn can't resist the obvious clip of Marilyn Monroe, albeit that the soundtrack of the film is absent and the image is projected widescreen and therefore in the wrong ratio. None of which is to say that the subject matter here is without interest, especially since increased synthetic expertise in this field raises ever more pertinent questions about the future of the diamond industry generally.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Dusan Simic, Martin Rapaport, Aja Raden, Stephen Lussier, John Janik, Tehmasp Printer, Melvyn Thomas, Chandu Sheta.
Dir Jason Kohn, Pro Jared Ian Goldman, Amanda Branson Gill and Jason Kohn, Ph Heloísa Passos, Ed Paul Marchand and Jack Price, Music Logan Nelson.
Kilo Films-Dogwoof Releasing.
87 mins. USA. 2022. US Rel: 11 November 2022. UK Rel: 13 February 2023. Cert. 12.
