Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (***)

Directed by: Justin Chadwick

Starring: Idris Elba, Naomi Harris, Tony Kgoroge, Riaad Moosa, Fana Mokoena, Jamie Bartlett, Deon Lotz

Seen: December 10^th 2013

*** Out of ****

As South Africans we’re almost obligated to watch Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (LWTF), which is not a bad thing, as each of us can learn a bit more about the times and the beautiful country we live in. LWTF is a dramatization of Mandela’s autobiographical book of the same name, chronicling Mandela’s life from before he was recruited by the ANC, his time as leader of the ANC, his imprisonment on Robben Island, and his activities and rise to prominence (even more so than before) after his release in 1990. The movie does a very good job of painting Mandela as a saint, with only a small amount of time occupied by Mandela’s abusive behaviour towards women in his younger years. This is forgotten soon enough though, and the movie focuses on Mandela’s activism rather than on what he might have done wrong during his life.

As a young man, Mandela (Elba) was a good boxer and an aspiring young lawyer. The ANC roped him in as an activist soon enough, and he became a vocal force against apartheid. This did not help much though, as the white South African government was power hungry and propaganda centred and Mandela soon enough started opting for violence as a necessary response to the atrocities committed under apartheid by the SA Police and Defence Forces, as well as the general white public. He received military training in Africa as well as at a farm in South Africa in preparation for his role as a freedom fighter in South Africa, but unfortunately this was eventually not of much help as he was captured and imprisoned for over 27 years. In prison he was terribly treated both physically and emotionally, and the movie goes to great lengths to show his constant acceptance of his fate without resorting to hatred, which is strongly contrasted with his wife Winnie Mandela’s (Harris) embracing hatred as her driving force. Mandela was on Robben Island from 1964 to 1982, after which he was moved to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town where he was incarcerated from 1982 to 1988. After this he was effectively under house arrest in Victor Verster Prison from 1988 to his release in 1990. During his almost three decade long sentence, he became close friends with one guard, James Gregory (Bartlett), and they were friends until Mandela died in December 2013.

Mandela: LWTF is a good movie without being great. It is great to reminisce on the life of Mandela and to see what a great man he was once more, but the movie is interspersed with too many other people or elements purposely negatively depicted to ensure that even the dimmest of viewers will walk out knowing and believing that Mandela is the undisputed hero. He was a great man on his own without it having to be contrasted with so much negativity. There are really only two white people who aren’t depicted as completely evil in the movie, and one of them features in a montage for only a few seconds. Winnie Mandela is made out to be very evil, and while I believe some of it to be accurate, the movie does not necessarily go into much more detail than short scene of what exactly it was that drove her to it, what motivated her towards such hatred. It is really good to recap the headlines of Mandela’s life though, and as a young(-ish) South African I can definitely look back and say that Mandela’s life made South Africa (and the world), an infinitely better place to live in.