Infectious.

Rating: 7/10 (23 February 2013)

Invictus picks up where 2007 Bille August film Goodbye Bafana left off; the man himself, South African political prisoner turned international beacon for peace and prosperity Nelson Mandela, has been released from prison and walks down a makeshift aisle of people forming in a public street to applause and apparent joy. Where we freeze frame and leave that particular picture, a film depicting his time inside Robben Island jail and the bond he struck up with one of the ruling supremacist guards, we kick things off again in Eastwood's 2010 film Invictus: a conclave of jeeps; police vehicles and an everything-proof car harbouring the man himself rattling on down a road as he formally begins his first day in office as the president of South Africa. If you're a tad scant on your contemporary South African history, or if you're just a fan of those rare times when two completely different films that happen to cover similar ground just seem to "fit" when viewed together, then the two would make for a pretty decent double bill.
As it is, I have very little knowledge of said subject but I probably know more of it than the sport of Rugby. Ah, yes – the subject of Rugby. The film depicts the short burst of time during Mandela's five year reign as South African's first black president wherein he united a nation previously divided over the colour of one's skin. From his inception as its leader up to the conclusion of the 1995 Rugby World cup, which South Africa has been selected to host, we observe the true story of how the man tried to use what was a predominantly white pastime (and the presence of which, to some, still epitomises the old racial government) to build a sense of unity, patriotism and new order during this early stage of his reign. The film is a winner, an awareness piece and a sports movie you've already seen that depicts a somewhat incompetent squad of sports stars coming-good, this is true, but a really engaging piece of drama told eloquently and reassuringly as if it were some kind of bedtime story.
Morgan Freeman plays Mandela, a man taking control of a shattered nation coming out of decades of oppression guided towards the black population, and with troubles so deep that they extend to the petty squabbles within his own bureau between white security guards and black security guards. When we watch him driven during that opening scene, we observe the lush green turf and spanking pavilion the whites have access to for their rugby juxtaposed with the blacks, and their groggy looking football pitch fit for no one. Not a million miles away is Matt Damon's Francois Pienaar, the true-to-life rugby player and incumbent captain of the South African national side, nicknamed the Springboks. His team's in a mess, they can't win; he's the leader to whom everyone looks; he's got a shattered group of whoever in need of a kick-start – Mandela's just inherited a shattered nation, few things are going right in this fascist aftermath and he's got to rebuild things too: they've BOTH got to troubles. If only there was some sort of compromise that could help both of them...
The film does indeed go on to depict these two men bound by their respective responsibilities of leadership in wildly different fields, but a pairing of racial and sociological binaries in the sense Pienaar is this rugby player and rugby represents everything old and nasty. An early couple of instances at a rugby international against the English encapsulate both issues: the South Africans are trounced at home by a northern hemisphere team, while South African fans wave both the old and new South African flags-alike in disparate parts of the grandstands epitomising imbalance. We enjoy watching Mandela, away from his political duties that his peers around him deem far more important, become more and more transfixed by this game and the build up around the global event due to arrive on their shores. Drawing on inspiration from narrative film building blocks of the sports genre, as well as arriving with that sense of freshness inherent with sports films that depict people non-synonymous with the sport their undertaking (or not overly synonymous with success AT it), the strand revolving around the South African team and Pienaar's leadership works surprisingly well.
Those obligatory scenes, when we recall the film has been made with the widest possible audience in mind, do not grate as much as usual in films of this ilk. When Pienaar makes the customary visit to Mandela's cell, he draws on the influence of how small this space is in comparison to his wide open, spacious domain of the rugby pitch. Furthermore, expositional lines reiterating Mandela's position of being in prison for so long but coming out again without the malice felt towards those responsible for the imprisonment are instances those who know a bit of history, or are familiar with our aforementioned Goodbye Bafana, do not need. Regardless, we are behind the film; we care, and we care because we've been presented with these characters and their problems in a manner more than competent enough in a film making sense. When the 'Boks thrash the Samoan team early on, the opposition are shot as faceless and anonymous: Eastwood really forcing our eye to meet with the South African team in their rugged and workmanlike glory as they do the job as convincingly as they do. The film is a powerful and engaging drama; another one of those 'gentle' Eastwood entries into the directorial canon of his, as he sways against his acting 'type' of the 1970s and 80s with another film dealing with violence; bigotry and such rather than use as a means to propel stuff. It's worth a look.