Change Your Image
tim_sims
Reviews
Invictus (2009)
Good but slightly overdone
Anyone of a certain age who follows rugby knows the story. South Africa, rightly (imo) banned from international sport during the apartheid era, return shortly after the first democratic elections there and upset all the odds by winning the 1995 world cup. Plus they beat the overwhelming favourites, New Zealand, in the final. And most importantly, Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar turn the victory on the field into an inter-racial healing of some very deep wounds. It was (if you're of a certain age) one of those rare moments when sport stops being a glorious irrelevance and actually has some lasting and real meaning. It moved me and I dare say many others deeply, and even as a die-hard Welsh rugby fan (and they don't come much more die-hard than that) I've had a soft spot for the Boks ever since.
With a true story like that it would be hard for a director of Eastwood's quality to go wrong. And for the most part Invictus gets it right. The lingering racial tension, for instance between the white and black bodyguards, is well captured, as is the slow process of the Boks realising they're more than just a rugby team. I'd join many others in praising Morgan Freeman's Mandela, not simply as a statesmanlike saint but with just enough of a hint of the neglect of more conventional affairs of state which is starting to appear in more critical commentaries on his presidency. And I'd be more positive than some about Matt Damon's portrayal of Francois Pienaar. I had the honour of meeting Pienaar during the following world cup here in Wales, and his own description then of how he felt in 1995 - that he became a national symbol of reunion without asking for it, knowing how to cope with it or even realising it was happening until near the end - pretty much sums up what we see on screen.
Yet for all that there are moments when the film applies the pathos too thickly. Too many scenes are spoilt by schmaltzy backing music that would be better suited to a TV miniseries. The scene on Robben Island is perhaps overlong, and the point - that Pienaar is starting to understand what Mandela went through and why - doesn't need rammed home with the clumsy appearance of a ghostly Mandela breaking rocks. And the scene near the end with the white cops and the black child outside the final strains credulity: apartheid-era bigotry instantly changed into inter-racial unity by radio commentary on a Joel Stransky drop goal. Maybe Eastwood felt the need to do this for the benefit of those who weren't so familiar with what actually happened. But if you do know what happened, it's all a bit unnecessary: the story should speak for itself.
On balance, though, these are minor criticisms. Invictus successfully weaves together sporting, racial and political themes in an unusual and powerful way. If it sometimes lacks subtlety then you might say the reality it depicts was anything but subtle. Those of us who remember can relive a moment we won't quickly forget. Those who don't can watch this and perhaps understand why.
Disgrace (2008)
Great novels don't always make great films
JM Coetzee's writing isn't to everyone's taste. Some of it might seem pointlessly dense and self-indulgent. But Disgrace is a widely-hailed masterpiece, and in this reviewer's opinion rightly so.
The problem in adapting it for the screen is that it's largely an allegory of post-apartheid South Africa and of white responses to it. It presents two very different such responses represented by the two main characters. On the one hand there's David, a professor who is caught having an affair with a mixed-race student, confesses everything without even being asked and willingly accepts his punishment and the end of his career. On the other, there's his daughter Lucy, who is gang-raped by a group of black men but who refuses to do anything about it other than bear the child which she conceives and indeed marry a relative of the rapist.
Of course, this is not how we'd expect real people or indeed convincing film characters to behave. But in the novel at least, that isn't the point. David represents a point of view which sees formal justice as everything. Guilty people (himself included) should accept their punishment and move on. By extension, the abolition of formal apartheid is all that is needed to remove any sense of race-based disadvantage or special pleading. Whites have given up power and non-whites (on this view) need to accept that and expect no more than formal equal treatment.
Lucy, on the other hand, represents the exact opposite position. Formal justice has no meaning - there is no such thing as crime and victims (herself included) take no comfort from the punishment of criminals. Again, the analogy is that abolishing the formal features of apartheid solves nothing - racial injustice and its consequences will always remain. Accordingly, whites need to accept that and the desire for revenge that comes with.
Neither character is attractive in the novel, and neither point of view is optimistic. I suspect that's exactly what Coetzee intended, challenging the reader to come up with some alternative between two bleak and diametrically-opposed alternatives.
The trouble is that allegory doesn't work well on screen. In the film - indeed in any film - there's less left to your imagination than in a novel. Many who've seen the film but not read the book are seemingly left bemused about why a rape victim passively accepts her situation, or why a tenured professor doesn't try to save his career. The symbolism and allegory of a novel, particularly a complex and challenging novel like Disgrace, just doesn't register. The film's strict adherence to the book, including much dialogue which is used verbatim, doesn't help this.
In other words, both the main characters are caricatures, intended to represent opposing wider beliefs or viewpoints. That's fine in a novel, but when a film-maker gives them an immediacy - faces, voices and surroundings - it becomes harder to see them as anything other than 'real'. What was meant to be absurd but illuminating risks becoming simply unbelievable.
Nonetheless, it has its moments. Both leads do well to give their characters at least some credibility, especially Jessica Haines as the self-willed but ultimately passive Lucy. The affair between John Malkovich and his student is given a strongly and appropriately sordid flavour. Eriq Ebouaney brings just the right balance of awkward bonhomie and hidden menace to Petrus. And the attack on the farm has a power which no novel can capture.
Overall, a decent effort at filming what is probably and ultimately unfilmable. Read the book first and you might like it more.