Political genius!

Rating: 10/10 (14 February 2010)

Diane and I were both moved by all that we saw during Invictus. I congratulate Eastwood for attempting, what to me, was an unlikely story in that rugby is a sport that few Americans know anything about although it is hugely important here in Australia as well as in New Zealand just across the Tasman. To select a film about a man who is truly the savior of his country and then form the story around an international game was a tremendous gamble but because of Eastwood's command of the film art form, the movie was an amazing visual, emotional and intellectual package. The story of Nelson Mandela is in and of itself easily one of the greatest stories of humanity in and then to wrap that story around something as unlikely as South Africa's participation in a World Cup rugby game speaks volumes about the director's competence as well as that of the script writer, the actors and the original novel from which the story was taken. Very early in the film you are struck by Mandela's political genius; we in the modern world are unused to seeing a person so sensitive to the needs of his country that he can rise above his own needs. We are unused to a person that is so sensitive to the greater movements around him that he can act for that greater need. When you remember that Mandela spent 16 years of his life in prison making little rocks out of big rocks then the enormity of this man's genius is almost beyond comprehension. When he sees what needs to be done and then goes through the motions of trying to make people who can only, because their mind is not equal to his, see their private histories rather than his embracing human view then one is involved in the tension of all that has been reduced to one game of rugby. This movie is transcending and must be watched.