Cecil says: I love this sort of film and they used to make so many more of them in the 80s and 90s – I’m thinking Killing Fields, Boat People, Beko, even Cry Freedom, though I know that got lambasted for focusing too much on the white journalist involved rather than the ‘struggle’.
I’m sure there will be those who criticise this film for
glossing over so many periods of South African history, but come on, it’s not a
documentary, it’s a movie, and it does a great job synthesising Nelson
Mandela’s extraordinary life into two and a half hours. Idris Elba is brilliant
as Mandela, and once I’d got over the first few scenes where all I could see
was Stringer Bell from The Wire, I was totally drawn in.
Although it isn’t a documentary (and I sometimes wondered
why more use wasn’t made of newsreel footage), as a viewer of a certain age, I
couldn’t help remembering personal moments: those ‘where was I when...’ kind of
thoughts, though very often they were along the lines of ‘sitting in a shaded
park reading the newspaper reports of Soweto riots in 1976’, hearing the news
of Mandela’s release in my office etc etc. All so far removed from the reality
of South Africa, and yet something we all felt so strongly about back in the
70s and 80s.
I mean I used to hate all white South Africans, but this was
around the same time that I hated all Tories, and all Americans. And my hatred
wasn’t even based on any personal oppression (I wasn’t even old enough to lose
my job under Thatcher). So all of those emotions, all that hatred in that divided
world of the 1980s makes Mandela’s achievement all the more remarkable in
placating and persuading the ‘people’ of South Africa to accept a peaceful path
to democracy.
The other thing such historical biopics do is make you aware
of time or of moments in history that are turning points. Those few months from
November 1989 to spring 1990 when so much happened in the world (I had my own
significant moment in Nicaragua in those few months) and so much changed
fundamentally. The world really was a different place, and remained so until
probably September 2001. But how do you ever know how significant these moments
are when they are actually happening?
So, yes, this is a great film also because it lets those of
us who lived through that era reflect on it all.
My only question mark, in addition to the lack of newsreel
usage, was why they never had crowds singing Nkosi Sikele Afrika; it’s such a
beautiful song and it was so much the anthem of that era. But if they had, I
don’t think I’d have been able to hold back the tears...
Great movie
****.5
Bea says: I wasn’t quite sure originally about seeing the Mandela
film. I had found the press coverage of
his recent death generally quite poor, with blanket coverage which however
didn’t really say anything at all about him.
I also thought it might be a bit depressing in parts, and had read
reviews that remarked on its length and slowness as a film.
I wasn’t expecting to be completely gripped from the outset
by the story of the young (and then older) Mandela. I wasn’t expecting to be choked up with
emotion for most of the film. I wasn’t
expecting to be uplifted. But I was all
of these things, and at the end of film just felt so completely moved. It’s a great story, generally managing to
avoid cliché and well directed and acted, with a familiar face doing a great
job of playing the great man, as we are fans of The Wire.
A few moments stood out for me through this 2 ½ hour film –
and regular readers know that I am usually highly critical of over-long films,
but not this one – when I started to remember the events from my childhood and
teenage years of news watching, the concert at Wembley, and the risk Mandela
took in urging the people not to resort to violence, but to exercise their
right to vote instead. That decision,
one amongst so many, and the TV broadcast he made related to it, was a
fantastic lesson in leadership.
A must see.
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