Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’ on Showtime, a Wildly Entertaining Documentary Takedown of the Diamond Industry

Fascinating and entertaining documentary Nothing Lasts Forever (now on Showtime) argues quite persuasively that diamonds – as a business and a symbol of love – are bullshit. So hey, happy Valentine’s Day! Director Jason Kohn takes a pointed and exploratory look at the diamond industry’s gilded past and volatile present – and perhaps nonexistent future, as manufactured synthetic diamonds find their way into a monopolistic marketplace where the old guard fights to maintain the myth of value and scarcity while skeptics and competitors mince no words as they gamely attempt to slash it apart. Like I said: fascinating and entertaining.  

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Men pack black crumbs of carbon into a cube and situate it inside a big, strange-looking machine. The machine does what it does – I believe it kinda mostly cooks it at high pressure under significant heat – and voila, out comes a diamond. Neat! Neater still: Gemologist Dusan Simic says natural and synthetic diamonds are for all intents and purposes identical. “From the gemological point of view, there is really no difference,” he says. But what about from the diamond-biz and marketing point of view? Well, diamonds are “symbols of commitment” that “have to have value” and “have to be expensive.” Those are the words of Martin Rapaport, speaking for BIG GEM. He’s a key evaluator of diamond prices. He’s very confident and assured. He’s been in the business for a long time, ever since, he tells us, his door-to-door diamond-salesman days, when his mother put $5k in cash in his pocket to teach him that having something of value on your person forces you to carry yourself differently. Sounds like a valuable lesson. You should try it some time. Just go to the bank and pull out $5k. No sweat! Anyone can do it!

Anyway. We meet this jewelry designer, Aja Raden, who coolly obliterates the mystique of diamonds. She gives us some history, unfettered by the bullshit we hear from other commentators: Diamond mining, sales and marketing company De Beers capitalized on the post-WWII economic boom by creating the pervasive Western idea wherein men spend far too much money on a diamond engagement ring as a symbol of their undying love. You know – those Diamonds Are Forever commercials, and all that. It’s capitalism masquerading as tradition. She tells us that the scarcity of diamonds, the Sotheby’s auctions selling giganto rocks, it’s all bullshit. There’s secret storerooms FULL of diamonds that De Beers slowly parcels out in order to inflate their value. And guess what? Not all of them are from De Beers’ two-kilometer diamond mine in Botswana. There are synthetic ones mixed in with the “real” ones and even the Dusan Simics of the world struggle to differentiate them. 

We meet this guy Chandu Sheta, a blue-collar diamond polisher in India, which functions as a hub for cutting and processing stones. Sheta’s dubbed “the mixer,” because he tosses some synthetics – after watching this movie, you can’t call them “fakes” – in with the naturals. Why? Because one day he realized he’d never be able to afford a “real” diamond on his meager salary. The working class revolts!

We meet this guy, Stephen Lussier. He’s the president of De Beers. If Raden is an extremely witty breath of fresh air, and Sheta is the rebel, Lussier is stale as a vintage 1968 saltine. In his words, the story of diamonds “inspires generations.” They’re “rare” and “unique” and “a billion years old” and each one “connects us with the formation of the world.” He and Rapaport dish out some ancient conservative notions of hetero love and values, because without it, their livelihoods might be significantly less lucrative. We meet this other guy, Jon Janik, who manufactures synthetic diamonds in Salt Lake City. He doesn’t come out and say it, but he’s pretty much aiming for De Beers. He’s capable of creating all manner of synthetic stones that Rapaport calls a “fundamental violation” of – what exactly? A quillion-dollar business that’ll eventually be fazed right the eff out? All they’ve been doing is selling a story, what Lussier calls the “diamond dream.” And people like Raden and Janik are ready to lay down some hard, pipe-hitting truth on that dream.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Kohn shows a gift for getting the most out of his interrogations – just like Werner Herzog does in Into the Abyss and Encounters at the End of the World, or like Errol Morris does with his Interrotron camera system in The Fog of War.

Performance Worth Watching: Raden’s go-for-broke, take-no-prisoners disdain for bullshit is inspiring. 

Memorable Dialogue: Raden breaks down the layers of the diamond biz: “A lie about a lie about a lie about a lie – delightful.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Is nobody in the diamond industry boring? All of Kohn’s talking heads deliver juicy, amusing commentary: Lussier laying on the not-even-remotely-convincing gauzy marketing schmaltz. Janik sharing what happened when he gave his ex-fiancee a half-carat synthetic diamond (“She wanted a bigger one,” he laughs). Raden mowing down all the trope-y diamond-biz talking points by telling us all the things De Beers doesn’t want us to hear. And Simic becomes a key character as the film follows him as he uses his considerable scientific skill to create a method of differentiating artificial from natural diamonds – and then seeks to craft artificial diamonds that foil his own system. Kohn is a skilled interviewer who chose his subjects well, and they offer a diverse array of perspectives and personalities that render the documentary a richly intriguing, endlessly amusing narrative.

There’s also a significant amount of musing of a philosophical type in the subtext, some of which bubbles up into the text itself: Questions about what constitutes the “real” and the artificial; the nature of truth itself is scrutinized when Raden admits to admiring De Beers for flat-out fabricating the notion of “precious” gemstones and turning it into a widely accepted “reality.” Take that thought a step or two further, and the diamond industry’s attempts to democratize indefatigable scientific truths takes on weightier implications; and the idea of synthetic diamonds mingling with natural ones becomes a metaphor for the apprehension we feel about the proliferation of artificial intelligence into society. What happens when the imitations match the originals on a molecular level, beyond even advanced comprehension?

Kohn maintains a taut pace and makes the most of a lively soundtrack, covering significant thematic territory in only 87 minutes. Structurally and conceptually, it’s a brilliant, sneakily creative documentary that sets up a big target for a hearty, justified evisceration. Skeptics will devour Nothing Lasts Forever like a hearty feast. Romantics need not apply.

Our Call: Nothing Lasts Forever is a truly remarkable documentary. STREAM IT, and stream the hell out of it. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.