Directed by: Justin Chadwick
Rating: ★★
Based on the late Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom tries it’s best to squeeze as many significant milestones as possible into the film’s two and a half hour running time: making it a very long and tiring watch.
 |
| Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela. |
The first half, in which a young Mandela fights his hardest against apartheid peacefully, only to turn into a more radical and violent activist, is interesting, if only to learn about Mandela’s early years from a historical perspective.
The second, which is incredibly slow moving and very slushy, is a lot more tedious and uninteresting, mainly because watching Mandela in prison isn’t particularly stimulating because we don’t get to understand how or why he begins to develop and change his views on his crusade.
 |
| Mandela is sent to prison, leaving his wife Winnie to fend for herself. |
There are two massive problems with Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
The first is that the film should have been more of a character study then a chronology of events, and because of this, I was left feeling that I didn’t really understand much about Nelson Mandela at all, except what he did during his life, and not the reasons why. This is particularly jarring in the last part of the film when he renounces violence- surely this is the most important and influential part of Mandela’s life, and yet we never really understand why he does this.
 |
| Nelson and Winnie share a heartfelt moment. |
The second is that Idris Elba is horribly miscast. He’s an actor that can’t quite connect with the audience, isn’t very likeable in the role, and isn’t good enough to play such an iconic part. He also can’t give the emotional depth that the film so desperately requires, and even though this does have a lot to do with the script, a better actor could have given something extra.
I also really don’t think Elba should have played the older version of Mandela, as he looks like a young man in a rubber suit.
 |
| A new hero is in town: Rubber Man! |
Naomie Harris, as the controversial Winnie Mandela, is very strong in her part, proving that she actually is a good actress even though she was terrible in Skyfall. Her part gets the most development, so you can understand why she has to resort to such extreme acts during her lifetime, even though the barbarism of these are quickly glossed over.
 |
| Oh Winnie. What a character... |
There are also a lot of events and parts of his life that are left out and unexplained, but I really think that the focus of the movie should have been on his character’s journey, rather than the actual journey itself. I wanted to know who Nelson Mandela was; I wanted to be inside his head and know why he did what he did at every stage in his life.
Instead we are given a very condensed, heavily fictionalised version of his reality, which was obviously going to happen anyway when it is based on his autobiography.
 |
| It is, indeed, a very long walk to freedom... |
Even though I had issues with Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, it did have very good moments: the best one being when Nelson renounces violence. But, by this point in the film, I did find it hard to be on his side, mainly because throughout most of the movie’s running time, he came across as an arsehole. I think that this is combination of a poor script, not enough character development and Elba’s poor acting ability.
All in all, I think that the only way to do justice to Nelson Mandela’s life story is to make a ten part mini-series. If we had ten hours, as opposed to two and half, we could get inside his head, understand where he’s coming from and also learn a lot more about the very complicated issues that were and still are present in South Africa.
 |
| Mandela and his supporters are sent to prison for a very long time... |
Shortening someone’s life story into a movie length adaptation is always going to be a challenge, and unfortunately, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is not successful at this feat. This is such a shame, as the movie coincided with his death, and really isn’t the tribute that he deserves.
0 Yorumlar