Idris Elba stars as Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Mandela spent 27 years in South African prisons. (Photo courtesy Weinstein Company)
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom explores some of life’s big questions — especially for anyone who cares about injustice.
How do you respond to oppression? Are you responsible to work to end it — even if it costs you your life or your freedom? How do you spiritually and psychologically cope with the cruel isolation it brings — when the system jails or shuts you down?
This movie confronts these questions and a lot more.
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is a compelling, significant, and emotional biopic. It covers the life of Nelson Mandela from his beginnings as a young revolutionary in South Africa to his arrest, conviction, and release from jail nearly three decades later.
Idris Elba deserved a Best Oscar nomination for his compelling performance as Nelson Mandela. Elba convincingly played the South African leader in a film that required the actor to cover a period of more than three decades. (Photo courtesy Weinstein Company)
Although the movie doesn’t show Mandela’s political development or ideology as much as it could, there’s enough of it here to make one ponder more questions.
How do you respond to oppression when a government won’t listen to you? What’s the best way to change an unjust system? How do you handle it when the system comes at you with violence?
Over the course of the movie the desire for justice turns into a larger spiritual journey for Mandela. And over time, the world catches up with Mandela’s ideas. But his years of imprisonment change him. He emerges with a cunning and uncompromising wisdom. It’s a complex transformation. Ultimately, he is politically effective but less trusting and idealistic.
Revolutionary tactics lead to a long jail sentence
The movie first reveals Mandela as a fiery and charismatic leader.
A young Mandela (brilliantly played by Idris Elba) is a revolutionary organizing to end apartheid in South Africa. He’s head of the ANC (African National Congress). The majority population of blacks are living under racial segregation. The white minority government doesn’t even give blacks the power to vote.
The demands of Mandela’s activism costs him his first marriage. And he falls in love with another young revolutionary Winnie (Naomie Harris) — who would become his wife.
Mandela increasingly gains prominence as a spokesman for the anti-apartheid movement. But after the Sharpeville Massacre — when an unarmed crowd is fired upon and 69 people were killed and many injured — the non-violent movement falls apart. Mandela and his other organizers don’t like violence and see it as a last resort. But they see no other alternative. They start a sabotage campaign against the government. The government outlaws the ANC and Mandela and his inner circle of revolutionaries are arrested in 1962.
They could have received a death sentence. But seemingly for political reasons Mandela and his cohorts are given life sentences. They don’t ever expect to get out of prison.
Nelson Mandela (Idris Elba) reaches for his wife Winnie (Naomie Harris) during the court hearing. He is spared a death sentence, but is given a life sentence at a harsh island prison. (Photo courtesy The Weinstein Company)
Years later, a worldwide campaign to impose sanctions on South Africa and to free Mandela succeeds. He is finally released.
But in one of the movie’s most poignant moments, he wanders through his home reflecting how much he’s missed in life while being in prison. And while he has somehow learned to forgive his enemies (although still distrustful of them), Winnie remains more militant. And the couple have just been apart for too many years to reconcile.
Sadness and wisdom in suffering
At the center of the movie is a question: is there wisdom and meaning in suffering when you are working in the cause of self-sacrifice to help others? The movie suggests there is.
After Winnie Mandela is released from 18 months of solitary confinement, she says to the media she wanted to thank her jailers because it forced her to finally grow up. And when Nelson Mandela is released he too is changed. He has transformed his anger into a sad but effective pragmatism. He’s realized it’s more natural to love than to hate.
There aren’t many movies that I wish were longer. But this was one of them. It clocks in at at about 2 hours and 15 minutes, but could easily have been three hours. It makes you want to reach for Mandela’s autobiography which the film was based on — particularly to find out more about his 27 years in prison.
I don’t know why this movie didn’t receive more buzz from the film industry. My guess is the politics and questions raised in it are just too complex for many film critics and the people who vote for Academy Award nominations. There aren’t any easy answers here in this movie.
After nearly three decades in prison, Nelson Mandela emerges a shrewd, wise and pragmatic man. However, he’s discovered how much more powerful forgiveness is than hate. (Photo courtesy The Weinstein Company)
Most of Mandela’s appeal in the United States seems to be as a symbol of someone who forgave his oppressors. But that’s only part of the story. The dirty business of racism, imperialism — and the role of the United States being slow to enact sanctions against the country — may be topics that are just too hot to handle. (Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the United States until 2008 when President George W. Bush took him of the list. Despite Bill Clinton cozying up to Mandela in recent years, during his presidency Clinton kept Mandela on the list.)
It’s also a major disappointment and injustice that this movie wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. And that Elba didn’t receive a Best Actor nomination. It’s difficult to convincingly play anyone aging over more than 30 years — let alone a well-known icon like Mandela.
Not overt, but consistently there
Mandela remained private about his religious beliefs during his life — he didn’t want them to be snarled up in politics. But he was born a Methodist and educated himself about world religion while in prison (his sole movie appearance was reciting part of Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary” speech in Spike Lee‘s movie Malcolm X about the Nation of Islam leader). He seemed to have remained in the Methodist church for his entire life. But there’s little specific mention of religion in this movie.
One is when Mandela tells his first wife “I don’t see your God caring about the people” while talking about apartheid. The other reference is when Mandela is told that South African President F.W. de Klerk (Gys de Villiers) is a Calvinist who believes he has been chosen by God to be the nation’s leader.
But this movie shows a real spiritual evolution. Even though it isn’t overt, the real spirituality is in Mandela’s difficult but transformative journey.
The years in prison made Mandela spiritually grow. He comes out forgiving, world weary and a bit untrusting. He’s learned to play the world’s game — walking the difficult tightrope between being practical without completely losing one’s vision and ideals. But all of that has come at a cost. But it’s a cost we all can learn something from.
Here’s the trailer for ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’:
