'Invictus' - a Film of Sports and Nation Building

'Invictus', the latest film by Clint Eastwood, staring Morgan Freedman and Matt Damon, tells the story of how South Africa became a country for all of its peoples through the unifying balm of sports, in this case rugby.

'Invictus' has all of the disadvantages of a sports movie. We have seen its like many times before. We know how it will go and how it will end. (Minor spoiler.) Rarely does the underdog team in such movies not conquer adversity to triumph in the end. A couple of things save the movie.

First, there is Morgan Freedman who seems to have been born to play Nelson Mandela, the first black President of South Africa. Freedman captures the dignity, greatness, and the sorrow of the man perfectly. There were, thankfully, no Obama parallels in 'Invictus.' South Africa was lucky that its first black President was a man of such quality as Mandela.

Freedman's Mandela has an enormous problem, overriding all others in the country that he had come to lead. South Africa was still, in effect, two countries. The whites were deathly afraid that they would be revenged upon for the decades of apartheid oppression. Many of the majority blacks were all too happy to oblige. Africa is replete with examples, including Zimbabwe, of countries that fell apart because of the cycle of fear and revenge.

Nelson Mandela certain had personal cause to feel vengeful; he had suffered decades of torment as a political prisoner. But he had the wisdom to set that aside, to exchange forgiveness for oppression, for the greater good.

But how to bring two mutually hostile peoples together and to make them one? In 'Invictus' Nelson Mandela hits upon the idea of sports as a unifying agent. Everybody likes sports, especially, in South Africa, rugby, an especially violent form of football played without helmets or padding.

This is where Francois Pienaar, the Captain of South Africa's apartheid era rugby team comes in. The team, facing abolishment, is instead turned into Mandela's instrument for unifying his country.

Then 'Invictus' proceeds as almost all sports movies do. Matt Damon puts in a stolid but solid performance as the Afrikaner team captain, who grows to be impressed by the man who has placed upon him the heavy burden of winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

What makes 'Invictus' a little awe inspiring is how it shows South Africa's diverse peoples coming together to cheer their team on to victory after victory. Nelson Mandela's security detail, part made up of Mandela's old comrades, part of hold over whites from the apartheid era, start the movie with mutual dislike. Toward the end they are recreating themselves with a rugby scrimmage and, at the climatic game with the New Zealand team, are hugging each other, exalted in the triumph they are witnessing.

The rugby sequences, hard to follow for American audiences unfamiliar with the game, are suitably violent. The scene where the New Zealand team perform a Maori threat display dance is priceless.

There will be some grumps who think that 'Invictus' is a little too fairy taleish. South Africa certainly still has its share of problems, even fifteen years after black majority rule became a fact. But South Africa is a functioning democracy, with Presidents who actually step down when their successors are elected. That in itself gives one reason to think that there can be hope.

Source Invictus, IMDB