Nothing Lasts Forever

Diamonds are Forever. Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend. Blah blah blah.

People have been spoon fed this kinda nonsense since before the world wars, but this documentary paints the picture that its only been in roughly the last 100 years that people have believed that a diamond ring is a MUST in order for love to exist.

Think about all the times a person grew up, fell in love, got married, had kids, "settled down" and their life just was fullfilled. Yet at any point in those same lives and the lives of just about anyone and EVERYONE you or I have known thats been married or engaged, the question of if and when a diamond ring is gonna be brought to the table is never far from the lips of somebody in the mix. Going back even to some peoples grandparents and great grand parents proposing nad tying the knot, since roughly after the First World War, people in the west have been sold, brainwashed, and lied to about the necessity of having a diamond ring in order to show ones love to a potential future spouse and mate.

The film also suggests that the notion of romantic love is also relatively new, having only existed for 150 years. That pat I find quesitonable given the fact that humans have just about always had the same emotional capacity as we have now. Yet even thousands of years ago, there were traditions to endear a man to a woman and her family if he wanted to marry her. Love always comes first, but the real issue is that so long as society has existed, there have been people that have said that love is not enough, and that loyalty and fidelity and support of your spouse and the children yall will have is not enough...So what else ya got? But who is at fault? Even throughout all the ages and eras of courtship around the world, and even with certain animals in the wild, the male has to do more than show off or be good at the courtship ritual. They have to at times provide a shiny pebble, or bauble, or something extra.

But we are not just base animals, right? Surely the even if nature makes lower creatures go through the ringer like that, it cannot be the same for what men are put through for women, right? So who is at fault?

This film literally points the finger and has testimonials form people within the industry and gives brief timelines, first hand accounts and drops truth bombs about how foolish our notions of value placed upon objects really is. And it makes sense. Love should always be primary. Thats the key that unlocks the door. Its the fuel for the fire of true romance. Anything that is gold or silver or diamond should not even be second, it should be tertiary (third) at best. And even though synthetic diamonds have been made since the late 1940s apparently, and theres literal impact craters in Russia and countless veins that lead to tons of diamonds found, people fuss over whether something is natural or man made?

This is a very straight forward and to the point documentary about all that and a bit more. And folks, really take this stuff to heart, because nobody should have to prove their love by spending tens of thousands on a hunk of rock or metal. Open thine eyes people, and find real romance. TRY!

Otherwise, just go marry some inanimate object if its so much more important than true affection from another human being; theres way too many folks already "shacking up" with "adult toys" in place of actual relationships, which says alot about a deeper problem thats been developing for many years in our species: Lack of Reasoning. Be well yall.

Great characters. Great conflicting views between the old and new world. The first half is particularly interesting. And the journey of one character, arguably the main one, which including a Uber driver gig, is also extremely interesting to follow.

But the designer/scientist/historian/writer hate so much De Beers that she managed to make them sympathetic. She is completely counterproductive and you end up doubting what she's saying.

I'm not sure if it was deliberate by the production to keep her to weaken the "synthetic" side but her interventions are the only weak points in the documentary.

Is the real big issue here, or can you differ between a real natural gemstone or a synthetic one. We are talking about a trillion dollar industry here, the diamond trade, with a premier league of true diamond retailers that moderates the market for all its worth, hiding away diamonds when prices get too low, so that the price for the little gem too rise again. A true crooked business all over the fiddle.

So synthetic diamonds are the grumpy old mans friend. Cause they look the same, weighs the same but cost 1/10 of the natural stones, so my grumpy old spouce may have one or two in her life time cause its price fits the size of my moneywallet better...

so its a documentary about the truth of everything about gemstones, thank god that gold cant be synthesized yet, and the war between the crooks and the other crooks that wants to crush or crash the markets, and the mediators trying to find a rosetta device that can tell the difference between a love diamond or a dantes diamond made in the core of hell.

An interesting documentary, i do not sympathize with none of them cause they are all greedy anyway, but the story about the diamond business are well told, just lacks a proper finale.have a look and youll understand what i mean.

I consume quite a lot of documentaries, they have always been one of my favorite genres in film.

I see that the other ratings seem to be a bit 'all over the place', so I wanted to drop a few quick words about this one.

Going in, already a bit familiar with the subject matter, I found this documentary to be fascinating. I wasn't bored for even one minute. I learned a few things that I had not known before.

The different personalities and perspectives were interesting, to say the least. I enjoyed some more than others, to be sure.

I believe my very favorite person in the whole film was the only woman to play a large part. She was clever, highly intelligent, with a very dry sense of humor. I often found myself laughing out loud. She's most certainly a woman I would enjoy sharing a meal with.

Give this one a chance, if it isn't for you in the first 10 minutes... go on to something else.

🌸

This is worth the 90 minutes runtime, which peels back the veneer of the diamond business - more accurately a cartel. Anyone who is skeptical of large corporations was probably already skeptical of the myriad ad campaigns surrounding the diamond industry. And while the documentary seems to focus more on engagement rings, the whole industry seems tainted.

Two people interviewed stand out in this documentary. First is jewelry designer Aja Raden, who is not shy about ripping the lid off the rather secretive diamond cartel, especially De Beers. Raden paints De Beers as a monopolistic organization that controls the supply - and therefore pricing - of a significant percentage of the world's gemstones. And when it is uncovered that some - or maybe a lot - of diamonds on the market may actually be synthetic (not natural), DeBeers comes off almost like a criminal organization. If they know about the synthetic diamonds (those that are "grown" in a lab), which are much less valuable than natural diamonds, then they are operating a fraudulent business. But De Beers will never admit that. Instead, they will continue to try to convince you that an engagement ring is worth the 2 months salary (or maybe 3 to 4 months) that the price commands. Who else does that?

The other interviewee is Martin Rapaport, an industry insider (CEO of Rapaport Group) and easily the ***worst*** salesman on why we should buy diamonds. His arguments are old-school misogyny, mainly focused on diamond engagement rings and how they make "women feel valued." His opinions totally ignore other retail channels for diamond, including earrings, bracelets, necklaces, watches, etc. And eh remains completely dismissive of synthetic diamonds, which obviously threaten his bottomline. Instead of finding a way to help the industry pivot, he remains an obstructionist.

Even De Beers only recently began selling their own line of synthetic diamonds, but still disses their worth. Not unlike the Koch Brothers or ExxonMobil dissing electric cars.

So why not 10 stars? The documentary ends on an unresolved note regarding a gemologist attempting to create the "perfect synthetic", something that no "expert" will ever be able to detect (despite millions of synthetics already in the market and undetected by these same "experts"). I wish the documentary had reached a more concrete conclusion.