Director Justin Chadwick’s adaptation of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom is the kind of well-acted, competently photographed and totally forgettable film that has plagued the biopic genre for decades. Tracing Mandela’s life from his childhood in the Xhosa clan to his election to the African National Congress and guerrilla resistance against the oppressive, violent racism of the white government, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom rushes through huge periods of the history of South Africa in a few short scenes. Mandela’s first marriage is dispatched within a matter of minutes, as is an underwritten and barely registered relationship with his mother. The longest period in the film, naturally, is Mandela’s 27-year imprisonment. The film ends with his election as President of South Africa and his work reconciling the post-Apartheid hostilities between the newly politically enfranchised black majority with the formally in-power white minority.
If this sounds like a lot to cover in a little over two hours, that’s because it is.
Director Chadwick and writer William Nicholson never miss an opportunity to bathe the young Madiba in the golden glow of the sun setting over the South African plains, or reconfigure his image from noble statesman to hip, young lawyer, boxing by day and chasing skirts by night. If you’re looking for more car chases in your sexy Mandela biopics, this film delivers. It glides over the actual facts of Mandela’s resistance, which turned to guerrilla warfare after years of nonviolent protests. These actions, which led some leaders to brand Mandela as a terrorist, are delicately handled so that Mandela comes off as a somewhat hesitant participant, more a part of a violent group than its leader. The bombing of government buildings, for example, is balanced by showing the horrific anti-black violence of the Sharpeville massacre, in which police opened fire on a peaceful crowd of anti-Apartheid protestors.
Such intense violence serves only as backdrop in the larger story of Mandela’s rise to beloved international icon. The treatment of the white Afrikaners, however, is particularly cartoonish; during the Sharpeville scene, the police are depicted as snarling, rabid dogs, gleefully firing upon innocent bystanders in an eruption of racist mania. I’ve seen more nuanced renderings of Nazis committing war crimes. The lack of subtlety in all aspects of characterization and storytelling is Mandela‘s greatest flaw, keeping an otherwise well-made film from achieving the transcendence and impact of its subject.
Idris Elba’s performance as Mandela is a lone bright spot. He’s more than capable of carrying this film on his shoulders, yet the direction never lives up to his compelling watchability. Aided by some good makeup, Elba ably transforms from a young revolutionary full of fire to a more mellowed cunning elder statesman. He particularly shines as the older Mandiba, who negotiates the terms of his own release from prison with the very white leadership that put him there. Naomie Harris is equally as good in a sadly underwritten role as Winnie Mandela, who works as her husband’s right hand while he’s in jail. Harris’ fiery performance contrasts Elba’s composed and serene exterior, and the scene in which Winnie visits Mandela in jail for the first time in 30 years is one of the film’s most powerful moments.
In light of Nelson Mandela’s recent death, Chadwick’s film seems poised to dominate the discourse about the man’s life and legacy. Although far from a terrible or grossly inaccurate portrait, Long Walk to Freedom is simply the Cliff Notes version of man’s life that has already been distorted and formed to fit a certain Western criteria. I can already imagine high school teachers substituting this DVD for a more nuanced, wide-ranging lesson on Mandela and South African history. Perhaps the film can be used as a jumping-off point, but viewers shouldn’t take this loosely interpreted biopic as the definitive media representation of a complex figure who truly changed the world.
