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6.1/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.1/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Black Diamonds remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, only if you’re into the kind of black-and-white cinema that smells like old basement archives. If you like your movies snappy and fast, skip this. But if you’re a sucker for grit and people just talking in rooms with very dramatic shadows, you might actually get a kick out of it.
It’s not for the casual Netflix viewer. It’s for the person who spends too much time on The Life of Moses and wonders why nobody makes movies about coal miners anymore. ⚒️
The whole thing feels like it was filmed with a heavy layer of soot on the lens. Jenny Morgan is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. There’s a scene where she just stares at a wall for what feels like a week, and somehow, I was actually buying it.
The pacing is… well, it’s not pacing. It’s more like a slow, steady trudge uphill. Sometimes the actors wait a beat too long before saying their lines, like they’re waiting for the ghost of the director to tell them what to do next.
Norman Astridge has this way of holding his hat that says more about his character than the actual script ever does. I kept watching his hands. He fidgets in a way that feels totally unscripted, or maybe he just really needed a break.
It reminds me a bit of the stuff they used to pull in The Little Brother, just without the wink to the camera. It’s earnest. Maybe too earnest? You can feel the movie trying so hard to convince you that this mine is the center of the universe.
I didn't care about the plot by the end. I just wanted to see if the main guy would ever stop adjusting his tie. He never did. 👔
It’s not a masterpiece. It’s barely a movie sometimes. But it’s there, sitting in the dark, waiting for someone to notice the tiny details. You can almost hear the film grain rubbing against your brain.