Invictus
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William Earnest Henley would not have asked for a better picture that encapsulated his written word. The moving images in ‘Invictus’ complement Mr. Henley’s musings resulting in a strong marriage on screen. The end result of ‘Invictus’ is just that—a victory.
The movie tells the story of how Mr. Mandela uses sport as a metaphor for building bridges post his presidential election in the early ‘90s. He walks in as the President of the Republic of South Africa from prison and into his office –that serves as a microcosm of the nation—to be greeted by an air of enthusiasm, tension, apprehension, and mis-trust, all in one plate. The whites fear a backlash to the years of apartheid in South Africa and the blacks try very, very hard to control their vindictive emotions. Amidst all this, Mr. Mandela stands tall trying to figure out any which way possible to reduce the ‘clash of skins.’ He dreams of a ‘rainbow’ nation; his colorful landscape being far beyond black and white. Mr. Mandela raised more than eyebrows for the black people when he insisted on continuing with the pre-dominantly white rugby team- an erstwhile symbol of oppression. He, however, continued with his ‘steps’ toward dismantling the debris of the past cleverly utilizing the love for the sport of rugby in the country—the love for the sport being comparatively lighter of the weight of oppression and politics. The path to win by the home nation of South Africa is what is extrapolated as the struggle for democracy and reconciliation for the Republic of South Africa.
Mr. Freeman’s depiction of Mr. Mandela is steeped in virtuosity and determination. He captures all the nuances of the giant called Nelson Mandela in his talk and his body language. Right from the smile to the accent to the hand-waving gestures of Nelson Mandela, Mr. Freeman simply reins it home. He conveys the determination of Mr. Mandela’s steps to tackling the mountain of problems at home and the pathos of estrangement with his family members with equal skill. Whether it is the gravitas he brings to the persona of Nelson Mandela at the meeting table with dignitaries of trading nations or the chuckle-quotient infused into the scene where he excuses himself out of the room for a minute to mischievously revel in one of the victories of South African rugby team, Mr. Freeman is in top form and simply leaves no doubt as to who in contemporary cinema would be the near-perfect cinematic alter-ego to the iconic figure of Nelson Mandela. He masterfully captures the spirit of the person that maintained sanity after 27 years of imprisonment in a way that still could bring out his appreciation for the other details of life like the beauty of women or their sartorial decorations.
Mr. Damon, on the other hand, comes across as quite a staid personality for someone who happens to be the captain of the rugby team. He plays the part of François Pienaar, the captain of the Springbok team, with sincerity, no doubt, but the lack of animation either in his actions or reactions on-screen do stick out. One wonders whether this dichotomy of being a gentleman off-field or in-house and a virulent sportsman on-field is a reflection of Mr. Damon’s understanding of the character or a necessitated move on the part of the director.
Mr. Eastwood, it seems, is simply turning out to be a warehouse of talent that has been given a new lease. The manner in which Mr. Eastwood is scripting and making movies that almost scream of subtlety is proving to be a perfect foil to the machismo-stuffed shenanigans of his ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘Dollar days. He has been in consistently good form—save for the utterly mediocre but Oscar garnished ‘Million Dollar Baby’— and is quite enjoying being on the good side of the American critics. Or so it seems. He directs this one with an air of assurance and leisure. Things take their own time to build up on you and they do so very nicely but scrupulously. He is particularly good in the casting of the actors that constitute Nelson Mandela’s immediate employees—be they his bodyguards or his secretary or his maid/cook. And they rise to the task quite effectively under Mr. Eastwood’s direction. There are of course, moments when he stumbles and resorts to clichés like interactions between the rugby loving black kid and the white cops graphing from distrust to a joint celebration of victory or of the black and white bodyguards briefly uniting under the playfulness of rugby or the montages of Nelson Mandela in prison, but these are very minor blemishes in an otherwise well-told story. Mr. Eastwood, as always, relies on minimal usage of technology without regressing and effectively lenses the movie. The photography is apt without being flamboyant or overtly orthodox. It captures the unsure, tension-filled environs of the nation of South Africa.
The theme of the underdogs’ unexpected winning of a sport event has been attempted numerous times before – whether ‘Chariots of Fire’ or our own ‘Lagaan.’ While the cricket match in ‘Lagaan’ was a direct retort to oppression and a fight for survival, rugby in ‘Invictus’ is a mere tool in uniting a diverse population from within a country.
In one of the scenes, the secretary comments that Mr. Mandela’s decision of joining hands with a team that represented repression would actually amount to a political calculation. Mr. Freeman responds with,’ Not political my dear, it is a human calculation.’ Isn’t this precisely what the world leadership is missing today?
Tags: Damon, Eastwood, Freeman, Invictus, Rugby
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Rahul Dholakia
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Varma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Sachin Kundalkar
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
One movie on my Must Watch list, big fan of Clint Eastwood, both as an actor and a director, made some great movies down the years. Gran Torino, last year, deserved to be in the Oscars, instead of that overrated SDM. And this decade too, he has made some great movies, Mystic River, the twin War Dramas on Iwo Jima, Flags/Letters from Iwo Jima( one of the finest War movies of all time), Million Dollar Baby.
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Watched Invictus last friday …it lived up to the expectations
@RatnaKar A
Agreed to ur comments bout eastwood and his films.but wats so yuck bout SDM … sticking on to hollywood or foreign movies doesn’t make a movie-passion’ner … if you cant relate to it ..make meaningful movies urself insteading of sweating it here
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Havent yet watched SDM due to few reasons, I assume common to Ratnakar sir’s. Does it make me any less passionate for cinema?
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I follow his blog real close … love his “seeti maar” works .. but cudnt take this view
no offence meant
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Arre bhai aap to serious ho gaye.
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I was a fan of Eastwood too till I saw ‘The Changeling’. Now I wait with bated breath…
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watch “Bridges of Madison County”!! you’ll fall in luv with Eastwood again!!saw it last week!! moved me in a way no Eastwood movie has!!
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@ crazy heart beats,
dude whats so special about sdm ? I dont see anything special in that movie…u can say its a tribute to good old 80’s bollywood movie..other than that theres nothing to relate in it.Trainspotting is an altime fav movie of mine from danny boyle…but this sdm was a big let down….
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@tedanton,
Nativity buddy … our identity to outside world is wat u call “good old 80’s bollywood movie”..SDM made heads turn.I agree many gud movies deserved to get an oscar from India…still gotto accept the fact SDM did…look at world class foreign movies..they try to potray nativity…and we look @ them and forget ours.SDM was a let down wen u compare to Trainspotting(helluva of a movie..my fav too)…no oscars for danny
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Nativity??”I agree many gud movies deserved to get an oscar from India…still got to accept the fact SDM did”
whats this nonsense??its not an Indian movie…lets not get into that debate again!! its just a danny boyle take on an indian novel.
how does it exactly made heads turn?have people started watching more Indian cinema?
and we have been able to make heads turn before also (its just that the frequency has been low)
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@ahmed ..it did give a new dimension to Indian technicians
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kaahe ka dimension boss!! A.R. Rehman is still one of the largest selling musicians of all time(with SDM or without SDM)!!do u think it requires an Oscar to stamp his class??Gulzar saab ko koi farq padta hai kya?? Sukhwinder won’t sing for any hollywood movie due to that Oscar, because he won’t get to!!
Does it make Kubrick or Hitchcock any lesser filmmakers because they didnt get one?? its the Academy’s loss, not theirs!!
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Morgan Freeman is great in his role. I love this movie.
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Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. Noithing can go wrong. A good review. I am waiting for this since I saw the trailer….
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very well written..though, interestingly the scene in the jail which you said was the low point in the film was one of my fav scenes in the film..very good review though..
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After reading this, I regret not watching Invictus when my family rented the film.
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