President Mandela (Morgan Freeman) drops in on Captain Pienaar (Matt Damon) in Clint Eastwood's Invictus.
Rugby nation
By Don Simpson
The prevailing mantra of the Specials’ song “Free Nelson Mandela” came true on February 11, 1990. After 27 years of imprisonment (18 years on Robben Island) for his role as an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress' armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
Following release from prison, Mandela helped lead the transition from apartheid towards a multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Thanks in part to Mandela’s reconciliation efforts, South Africa's first fully enfranchised multi-racial elections were held on April 27, 1994. The African National Congress (ANC) won 62 percent of the votes in the election; and Mandela, as leader of the ANC, was inaugurated on May 10, 1994 as South Africa's first black president.
Invictus commences with Mandela’s (Morgan Freeman) transition into his role as president as he prepares to preside over the transition from white-minority rule to the rainbow nation. One of his first truly international tasks as president is to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa, and Mandela sees this as an opportunity to conjure together some national unity by encouraging black South Africans to support the South African national rugby team: the Springboks.
Mandela’s staff and supporters are quick to proclaim this scheme as implausible, Black South Africans follow soccer, white Afrikaners follow rugby. Additionally, the springbok (a medium sized brown and white gazelle) was a national symbol of South Africa under white minority rule (including a significant period prior to the establishment of Apartheid). Can Mandela really convince black South Africans to support a symbol of Apartheid?
Mandela meets with Springbok Captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), an Afrikaner, to provide motivation for the Springboks to succeed and as a sign of reconciliation between white and black South Africans. Mandela tells Pienaar about how William Ernest Henley’s 1875 poem, “Invictus" was motivational to him during imprisonment, primarily the closing two lines: “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
The Springboks begin as the underdog in the competition. Practicing what he’s been preaching, Mandela attends the World Cup final wearing a Springbok cap and jersey (with Pienaar's number 6 on the back).
Directed by Clint Eastwood and adapted by Anthony Peckham from the John Carlin book, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation, Invictus is motivational on occasion, but otherwise it’s a monotonous mess.
Other than Freeman, who near-flawlessly channels Mandela, Eastwood’s characters are as flat as cardboard cut-outs. They are never developed and subsequently have no emotional depth. Even despite Freeman’s transcendental performance, the audience is left with little knowledge of who Nelson Mandela really is. Damon’s Pienaar is most blatantly harmed by lack of character development; he obviously has an integral role to play in this story, yet we learn absolutely zilch about him.
Even the primal intensity of the rugby matches is completely drained by shoddily timed editing and lackluster cinematography. I’ve watched cricket matches that were more powerful and moving than the rugby footage featured in Invictus. It’s a sad fate for a sports film when images of huge crowds become more breathtaking than the sporting match itself.
The timing of Invictus could not be more purposeful, and I’m not talking about its prime holiday season release date. South Africa is currently preparing to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup while the United States recently dusted off some race issues of their own by finally electing their first African-American president (Barack Obama).
As president, Mandela was greeted with as much (if not more) suspicion than Obama; yet Mandela quickly assuaged many of his doubters with his first true attempt to unite black and white South Africans after decades of racial oppression –- by way of rugby no less. Mandela’s success with racial reconciliations commencing with the 1995 Rugby World Cup is a world renowned benchmark in the peaceful reconciliation of racial relations. It’s a shame Eastwood couldn’t translate the inherent significance and emotion of these events to the silver screen.
