It's not about making people happy, but uniting them in happiness...

Rating: 9/10 (16 June 2018)

FIFA World Cup just started providing its share of thrills, joys, and deceptions. While I was watching the Moroccan team yesterday, my right foot was uncontrollably trembling, my heart pounding at the national anthem and everyone was glued to the screen with the kind of frozen expression that that only Sports can draw on faces.
And tough memories resurfaced, twenty years ago, we had scored three goals against Scotland in one of "these games"; I was tying my shoes, everyone was getting ready to celebrate our qualification to the quarter finals in the street... but Brazil that had previously beat us with three goals against none, the World Champion and team of Ronaldo (bald Ronaldo, not Cristiano) lost against Norway in what should have been an open-and-shut case. A penalty kick at the last minute destroyed all hopes. My brother cried and I took off my shoes.
Twenty years later, history, cruelly again, decided to repeat itself, at the last minute, in the worst possible way, one of our players scored against the team, earning Iran the precious victory and filling our hearts with bitterness. See, one can also understand the power of Sport from defeat, sport unites and brings back positive energy for a brief but exhilarating period. It also creates extraordinary bonds between people who had nothing in common except quivering for the same colors. Sports mark a truce, awakening feelings whose negative counterparts are nourished by war and political conflicts the rest of the time.
Sport is essential to one country; it is essential to the world.
And as I watched Clint Eastwood's "Invictus" one day before the kick off, I felt like I could read in the mind of Nelson Mandela, played in all nuance and depth by Morgan Freeman. What an ironically fitting name for an African leader who was quite the opposite of a "free man" for ten thousand days of his life.
Indeed, some iconic artists achieved greatness and died in 27 years, for Mandela, it was the time spent in jail that allowed him to free his mind from hatred and resentment, to achieve his personal greatness through humility, forgiveness and humanity. The film starts at his release as he's cheerfully welcomed by black people while the whites expect the worst. "End Apartheid" was the slogan that the majority of today's population wouldn't remember, not even South Africans... but the miracle happened and Mandela, Madiba as he's respectfully and affectionately called, almost rhymed with Messiah.
"Can he run a country?" asks a militant newspaper, Mandela's bodyguard sees a hate campaign but Madiba lucidly says "it's a legitimate question", he's already approaching his role as a unifier not a divider. Coming to office, he invites the skeptical whites to stay unless they think there are irreconcilable differences, what he does is giving them a choice, a freedom, a gift only a man of his experience could value. He also hires white bodyguards and their interactions with the previous team plays like a great microcosm of the reconciliation built up throughout the film, with the power of Sports. Because "Invictus" isn't a biography film as much as it's a Sports film.
Mandela has great scopes of achievements... and failures as well, his prestige was a double-edged sword that can earn him hostility from the Afrikaners and when facing unemployment, poverty, and criminality, sports could be perceived as the least of the priorities. The genius of Mandela is to take sport damn seriously, he watches a rugby game and discovers that the Blacks support any team against the Springboks, he's booed by supporters who proudly brandish the old flag and concedes it's a constitutional right. But when he learns that the ANC is going to replace the team with a new name, new colors and hymn, he asks everyone to reconsider the vote, taking time to explain why they're wrong.
Mandela wasn't just that all-smiling icon; like Gandhi, he was a natural-born leader. Warned by his secretary about the risk of losing his power, he reminds her that a true leader should be guided by his principles, not fears, he knows reconciliation is impossible without the Springboks. As much as the Whites must forget, the Blacks must forgive. It's not political but human calculation (one of the film's great quotes).
Mandela then meets the team captain François Pinaar (Matt Damon) and the two men realize they speak the same language, François always wanted victory but after his pivotal encounter, he understands that the country, hosting the 1995 World Cup, needs the victory, sports don't just make people happy; it unites them in happiness. It was twice a miracle because because South Africa had to play against the iconic All-Blacks whose haka could scare enough to guarantee a victory.
"Invictus" isn't just an underdog movie, it chronicles every single effort that made a miracle possible, because the miracle-maker was a miracle by himself. Visiting his cell, François realizes that he could touches two facing walls by simply spreading his arms. Anyone can survive 27 years of jailing, but can any soul? Mandela was the Captain of his soul as he was master of his fate and overcame his demons.
François spreads the good word to the team, and like an apostle to a saint (but the film doesn't over-sanctify them) meetings are arranged with young Black kids from the poorer areas. And for once, they forget about soccer and learn about rugby not just from Chester, the only Black player.
The team also they learn the hymn "Schosholoza", that haunting melody that reminded me of that magical World Cup in Africa in 2014. The team had to win, and they won, the rest was history. Mandela understood the magic of Sports and used it as a political tool but a human miracle.
Maybe Morocco should watch this film before their next game against Portgual... after all, it ain't over until the referee blows his whistle.