Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Idris Elba doesn’t look like Nelson Mandela. Neither does Naomie Harris look like Winnie Mandela. If there ever was a contest about who most closely resembles the two icons of the South African liberation struggle, Elba and Harris wouldn’t even come close. The audience in the theatre where I watched the biopic on its opening day seemed to have accepted the incongruity of Elba’s appearance compared to Mandela, aided in large part by his height and Mandela-like voice (how did he do that?). However, gasps ran through the theatre as soon as it became clear that a scrawny-looking but pretty lady, who I’m sure many (including myself) thought was just another to-be conquest of the womanizing – that’s right – Mandela, was actually playing the role of Winnie.

And yet their performance is nothing short of moving, profound and powerful, truly special if you consider the small matter of non-resemblance. I suppose it takes great courage and no small amount of self-belief to play the larger-than-life Mandela and the equally complex Winnie. In her own words, Harris, who has played Bond girl in Skyfall, admits that playing Winnie Mandela “is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” The two non-South Africans had to overcome language and accent obstacles to inject realism into the film. The audience cheered, rapturous no doubt, when Elba spoke a few words of Xhosa in a scene where Mandela is visiting his mother. More than anything else, it is their reassuring performance that infuses acceptability into the biopic.

Which isn’t to say that the other actors don’t do their job. Tony Kgoroge (another incongruity), who plays Mandela’s long time comrade Walter Sisulu, and Riad Moosa as Ahmed Kathrada, both deliver credible performances, as do the rest of the cast completing the Rivonia accused as well as other important figures in the struggle. For the straightforward reason that this is a biopic about Mandela, and perhaps in an effort to make it as intimate as possible, the focus isn’t much on Mandela’s comrades apart from Sisulu and Kathrada. Hence I presume it would be unfair to say the movie diminishes their very important roles in the struggle. It is however curious that some high profile South African actors were given these roles that were very much in the background, such as Fana Mokoena (Govan Mbeki), Sello Maake ka-Ncube (Chief Albert Luthuli), and Jamie Bartlett, who plays Mandela’s prison officer James Gregory.

There is another small matter - I (and I heard loud whispers from others in the theatre too) would have preferred Elba to be in Xhosa attire when he utters Mandela’s famous words in court, as Mandela himself was, to display his proud Xhosa royalty. Other key events, such as Mandela’s childhood, arrest, walk from prison upon his well-planned release, as well as the negotiations with the de Klerk government are a tad low-key, and some feel almost rushed, especially his childhood. It’s hard to fault this – it is not a small feat to compress Mandela’s eventful life in a 146-minute flick. If you are inclined to fastidious detail you should probably read (or re-read) the book.

However, apart from these small matters (which are forgivable, really), you will be deeply and emotionally moved by the depiction of the collapse of family life under apartheid, such as the last hand clasp between Mandela and Winnie in court after his sentencing; Mandela’s grief at not being able to attend his mother’s and son’s funerals; Winnie’s detention, leaving their two young daughters all alone, and her courage in the face of police harassment; and their daughter Zinzi’s reading of her father’s letter at a release-Nelson-Mandela campaign rally, among other scenes. Prepare yourself and don’t choke on your popcorn when those lumps fill your throat and a teary mist covers yours eyes.

It is by no means a bleak or depressing biopic. Humor and wit, well-known attributes of Mandela, counterbalance the emotional scenes. Mandela and his comrades celebrate in prison when they score a “big” victory – being given long pants in place of schoolboy shorts. Mandela’s romance with Winnie, especially his proposal, is very heartwarming. And don’t be scandalized by the portrayal of Mandela as a womanizing and wife-neglecting man before he meets Winnie.

This is a very honest and intimate depiction of the Nelson Mandela, the man and the icon; his journey from being a carefree lawyer having the time of his life in Johannesburg, to being the face of the anti-apartheid struggle amidst his personal guilt for having “abandoned” his family, and finally, to being released and inspiring his nation to freedom. It is criminal, I believe, not to watch this film.

Picture credit: Hitfix Awards

Sleeper's Wake

Picture life in a remote and idyllic coastal village, lush with greenery and poetic in the lazy back and forth of its bordering sea. Here, the drag of time complements the ponderous quiet. The sweet songs of the birds, and not the din of the traffic, adorn the crisp air. In such an environment, it is easy to fall prey to romantic entrapments, or just plain lust – in most cases one can’t tell the difference. Every addition to the sparse population is an object of open and unabashed interest, a promise of a break from the norm, an escape door. The irony intertwines in a strange dance: the incoming look to escape to the serenity, and the locals look to escape a life that has become banal to them. Add personal tragedy and trauma to the mix, and you have a compelling story of how situations, circumstances, and environments shape man’s actions.

Sleeper’s Wake, based on a novel with a similar title by Alistair Morgan, is a South African movie with pretty much this setting. John Wraith is in his mid-forties and has just lost his wife and daughter in a terrible car accident. His trauma feels worse as he fell asleep on the wheel, causing the accident. He retreats to the remote coastal village, where he gets involved with a family mourning its own loss: Roelf, his teenage daughter Jackie and her younger brother Simon. They are reeling from the loss of their wife and mother in a horrific home robbery.  A shared trauma, an idyllic environment, and various forms of escapism lead John to fall for Jackie’s audacious seductive games, and what unfolds, albeit painstakingly, is a gripping psychological thriller.

You wouldn’t enjoy this movie should you watch it immediately after the latest Fast & Furious, as the plot reveals itself slowly, which is remarkable since the movie runs for just about eighty-eight minutes. A good deal of effort is made to induce a touch of poesy in the screenplay – picturesque scenes are displayed for a tad longer than normally, accompanied by soft piano soundtracks. Perhaps this is necessary as the plot appeals primarily to emotion and psyche. The overall effect is almost literary, almost because the development of the plot is somehow disjointed and doesn’t flow as effortlessly as one would expect.

There’s slight disappointment however in character development. Jackie’s brother Simon only plays a peripheral role and later disappears, presumed to have escaped from their controlling father Roelf. The movie ends without him being found. It is also not clear what role a domestic worker plays after she appears at John’s house seeking employment, and, apart from chancing in on Jackie and John after one of their romps, she virtually fades away.

The acting is above average, particularly by Jay Anstey (Jackie), who has made a notable transition from acting in the SABC TV drama Isidingo to the big screen. Lionel Newton’s portrayal of the troubled John is also profound.

If you have a taste for the slightly morbid and unorthodox, as well as a literary taste, this could be a movie for you. I would recommend it as a fairly good flick. 

The Words

It was the Youth Day holiday in South Africa yesterday. My wife, being the young and ambitious politician she is, was away the whole day, leaving me to figure out what to do with time that seemed drearily interminable. I didn’t feel the urge to go out, so I shuffled around in the study room reading blogs, news, and played some chess online. I followed the chess games at the Tal Memorial Tournament currently underway in Moscow, and played through games from the just concluded Spicenet Tanzania Chess Tournament. By the end of the day my head was protesting, yet that great constant that has withstood its own test so far – Time – still needed to be spent.

So as I waited for pizza (which always somehow reprimands me for my culinary laziness) at the local complex, I drifted to the movie rental store. The Anna Karenina movie immediately caught my eye, and I impulsively grabbed at the DVD cover as if in competition with someone. A queue at the pay point encouraged me to browse more titles, and that’s when I saw The Words, whose simple and innocuous cover belied an interesting plot summary displayed on its back about a writer at the pinnacle of literary success who has to face the consequences of stealing another man’s work.

I decided to take both before I glanced at the time – 8 p.m.–and the rain check I took forced a difficult choice on me. Since I have delusions of being a writer, I decided on The Words, and it wasn’t disappointing.

Starring Bradley Cooper as Rory Jansen, the exotic Zoe Saldana as Rory’s wife Dora, and Dennis Quaid (whose goofy smile never ceases to surprise) as Clayton Hammond, The Words is astounding in its poesy and profundity. The words and phrases used, as well as the tone and the acting, are delightful to the literary mind. It is as uniquely relevant to aspiring writers as it is to junkies of the romance genre. Officially a romantic drama, it is a poignant tale of choice and consequences, and the emotional motivations behind them.

It begins with Clayton Hammond, a successful writer, preparing for a public reading of his new novel – The Words. He looks at himself in the mirror, as though to look into his soul and figure himself out, before stepping out to the podium. There he tells the story of Rory Jansen, a struggling writer in New York facing rejection after rejection from publishing houses for his literary troubles. Forced to take on a day job and temporarily abandon his literary ambitions, Rory is in love with Dora, whom he marries, and they proceed to Paris for a honeymoon simple enough to accommodate his shoestring budget. They buy a seemingly nondescript antique leather briefcase in which, later back in New York, he discovers a manuscript containing a story– the kind he has always wished he could write but couldn’t.

The story in the manuscript is of an American man in the army in Paris during the Second World War, who falls in love with a French lady and marries her. They have a daughter, who however falls ill and dies. This tragedy in the young couple’s lives forces a schism between them, and they separate. The young man, emotionally scarred, writes his story, and puts the manuscript in – you guessed it – a leather briefcase, which he sends to his wife. The deeply emotional manuscript reunites husband and wife, but the wife, on her way back to the husband, forgets the briefcase – and the manuscript in it – in the train. The young American man is irretrievably disconsolate, and leaves his wife.

In short, Rory is so taken by this manuscript that he, urged on by his unsuspecting wife Dora, submits it and accepts the offer to publish it. It becomes a literary commercial and critical success. An Old Man however comes to him and reveals that HE wrote that manuscript, that he WAS in Paris during the Second World War, and that it was his wife and daughter in that story.

The plot in the movie is revealed in a sweeping, almost epic, multilayered way. Yet the deep emotional sentiments are captured in a very vivid and stark manner. Rory is forced to confront himself as the Old Man apparently only wished to let him know who the author of the manuscript is and the story behind it. Rory wants to relinquish all rights of the novel to the Old Man, but he won’t let him. Here the Old Man’s utter regret comes to the fore – the story he wrote became dearer to him than the woman who inspired it. He made his choice, and has lived with the consequence ever since. He reveals that he has never been able to write again, and that he had seen his wife only once again, but she had remarried and had a son.

Rory also finally makes his choice – he keeps his secret. In that particular scene he is doing a public reading, announcing – staring straight at me with blue eyes lacking in conviction – the author as Rory Jansen. Dora has apparently forgiven him, or so I thought.

The movie took me back to Clayton Hammond at his public reading. He finishes and retires to his place with a much younger lady he has just met at the reading – Daniella, played by Olivier Wilde. As he gets some wine Hammond again confronts himself in the mirror. Deep blue eyes stare back at him. Daniella is impatient and wants Hammond to reveal what really happened in the end to Rory Jansen. Hammond wants her to read it, but Daniella prods. Hammond challenges Daniella to predict. She powerfully drives the point home that Rory – and the way she said it I was pretty sure she was talking about Hammond himself – had robbed himself of self-discovery as a writer; that by stealing someone else’s work and achieving success with it, he would never ever know his true capabilities, no matter how much or well he subsequently wrote and published.

For a fleeting moment I could see the “busted” look on Hammond’s blue eyes. Perhaps he had told his own story? Perhaps he is suffering from the consequences of his choice (assuming that he is indeed Rory Jansen)?

But then he shoots back at Daniella with the same passion and accusing tone, “What if Rory, Dora, and the Old Man are just characters I created in the book?” He agitatedly tells Daniella that there is a thin line between fiction and real life, and that the two never cross. She seems to believe him, and both succumb to the attraction they have felt since they met. But then he pulls back. She wonders why as she recalls he had told her he is separated from his wife, and had evaded her pointed question as to why he still had his ring on.

And then Hammond faced me directly with those haunted blue eyes. There is a flashback showing Rory saying sorry to Dora. Hammond’s blue eyes faced me again. And the movie ended.

That ending was particularly pleasing as I had to think for myself. I had to debate whether Hammond in fact told his own story and was living with the consequences faced by his character, Rory. I had to figure out whether Dora, who had thought that she had had a peek into her husband’s soul after reading the deeply emotional manuscript which Rory initially didn’t tell her is not his, forgave Rory and what happened to their marriage. This was no spoon feeding movie.

Well, you too have to watch it and figure out for yourself.