Long Walk to Freedom

This is the first of three movie reviews that has strong ties to the books they derive from. As there is a lot of time away from wifi, and I cannot watch movies as often, I have been reading... a lot. So much that I had time to read the 600 page autobiography of the late Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom.

As it was, my friend actually had the film. So nearly days after I read the book, I was watching the 3 hour movie based on the autobiography...

In retrospect... this probably wasn't a good idea.

Let me give this movie a little bit of slack before I begin. First off, the film is based off the life of one of the most extraordinary leaders who was still alive when the film was being filmed.

Now I'll have words to say about the timing of this film, but it must be kept in mind that this is a story of an incredibly influential man. With that fact, there is a truth in saying that a film on his life is, regardless, going to make a lot of money. There was probably a lot of pressure to make this film.

Also, not everyone is going to be happy, especially those who read his book. Like any book, people are going to put importance on different things and if those parts are not in the movie, people are going to feel slighted. Not everyone is going to be happy with the release of this film.

There are so many things that I can say to excuse this movie and give it a little bit of a pass. But eventually I'm just going to have to come out and say it.

I was not a fan of this movie.

I'm not saying its the worst movie ever made, I'm not even saying it didn't honor the memory of Mandela respectfully, it just wasn't the best it could be. I also felt it came out at the wrong time.

But what is Long Walk to Freedom about?

As stated before, Long Walk to Freedom is the biographical representation of Nelson Mandela and his work the ANC and the struggle to end the tyrannical Apartheid system in South Africa from the 1940s to the 1990s.

The story begins as Mandela (played by Idris Elba) is becoming a successful lawyer in Johannesburg and suddenly becoming more and more involved with the struggle to bring democracy to South Africa and end the Apartheid system.

Before I go any further, I must mention the thing that probably was the part I was most conflicted about in this movie, and that was Idris Elba playing Mandela.

Now I like Idris Elba. I don't think I've seen him in enough and thats a little bit sad. I think the most I've seen him in is Thor as the gate keeper dude, and American Gangster, where he gets shot in the face by Denzil Washington. However, one way or another, I know the man by his reputation and when I hear a movie has Idris Elba in it, I get the feeling that its going to be good, just because of the name recognition.

Now maybe I have a different perspective of Mandela than what is actually reality, but I look at Idris Elba and I don't see Mandela. As much as they want to play with his face, as much as they want to give him a beard, I cannot see Mandela.

Now I understand the casting. If I'm a director, or a person making a film with the purpose of honoring a great inspirational leader, and I have the option to put Idris Elba in that role, why the hell not? He's a strong actor, he's a very attractive gentleman, and if someone is going to portray Nelson Mandela in a strong, masculine, charismatic way, Idris Elba seems like a good choice.

Personally though, I don't see it. With the pictures I've seen of Mandela, while he was an attractive man, he was physically fit, I don't see him built like Idris Elba. Maybe I'm wrong. And personally, as the movie goes on and the years pass, and Mandela gets older and older, it looks more and more strange.

Do I really need to have my rant on this make up and prosthetics to make people old? I've talked about this in my Cloud Atlas and Time of the Doctor Review. I wasn't wild about that work, and I'm not wild about this work. This process of making people older has to be done correctly and I can't say this was done incredibly well. Not horrible, but not well.

All of that superficial observations said, I did think that despite not looking the part, I can't complain about Idris Elba's acting ability. The man made me feel, he obviously understood the part, did a lot with the script, and rightfully so was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. I didn't think he deserved to win, but he did well and deserved the nomination at least.

But let me get back to the story.

The story shows the beginning of Mandela's role in the struggle in South Africa's liberation in a very condensed way to fit into a 3 hour movie.

And that's another thing I need to give the movie slack for. Long Walk to Freedom is a dense book. And when I say dense, I mean DENSE. There's a lot of things that happened in that man's life. A lot of it was important, a lot of it was essential and yet a lot of it was condensed, merged with something else, or cut out all together.

Things like the Treason Trials, Mandela's Childhood, intricacies of his time on Robben Island, a lot of these things are cut out in order to streamline the important parts of the book. And I would usually overlook the things they missed if it was just flushed out more important parts. Its not an incredible problem that the Treason Trials were left out, but was it really necessary to bring in a scene of Mandela kind of beating his first wife? Whether its true or not, is it necessary in learning about the struggle against Apartheid, is it really painting a true picture of a man and his struggle against oppression? What did that contribute to the film? Nothing, that's what. And that's the struggle I had with the film.

But first I want to talk about a great bittersweet part of the film, and that was Naomie Harris as Winnie Mandela.

If you wanna talk about an actress who definitely needs to be in more shit, its Naomie Harris. Not only is she incredibly gorgeous, she's a phenomenal actress. While the movie is called Mandela, it is very much a film about Winnie Mandela as well. The struggle she had to face, the torture and detainment she faced while Mandela was gardening in Robben Island.

She's quite the figure in this film and Harris just rocks it.

The bittersweet element of it is that she actually becomes a little bit of the antagonist near the end of the film, something that was not portrayed in the book at all. Mandela makes mention about how the goals and views between him and Winnie became different and eventually caused their separation, but he never portrays he as the villain. Now I understand that this film drew from more sources than the autobiography and there probably was a dynamic similar to that portray in the film. But the problem I have with it, and a lot of things with this film is just the timing.

Winnie Mandela is still alive. Mandela was still alive when the screenplay was finalized and the movie was being filmed. In my opinion, the movie did not really paint them in the greatest light. Now, you can mention that the film was aiming to be more historically accurate rather than an omage, and to that I say, I totally get that. But you couldn't wait a few more years? Couldn't this culminating motion picture event come out when enough time has passed? Maybe Mandela and Madikizela gave their blessing and maybe its all accurate, but it didn't really seem in the best taste to me.

That's the main complaints I have with the film. That its timing was not exactly perfect, especially with the death of Mandela, but also in respect to parties who are still alive and not painted in the best light.

But there was also an element of the film that didn't quite get the atmosphere of the Apartheid struggle.

I don't mean to make light of oppression, especially the oppression done during Apartheid. Its a serious issue, there's no reason why the film shouldn't have had a very serious tone to it.

However, if you have read the autobiography, you can tell the light heartedness and cleverness in dealing with Apartheid policies.

I think this was the most lacking, when it came to Mandela's time at Robben Island. Again, I don't want to diminish the struggle he and many other people faced against an oppressive system.

But Mandela and the ANC had ways of tricking and putting the law on its head. They had ways of making change that were so different than expected.

Here's an example. Blacks in the prison systems, for the longest time were not allowed to wear long pants. They were told "boys" wore shorts, while coloured, and white prisoners wore pants. The first day, Mandela made a fuss about getting pants. The guards were so sick of hearing about it that they gave him pants, but not his compatriots. Mandela refused to take the pants because he wanted it for the entire group, not just him. Being a lawyer, Mandela called out his captors on their mistakes and utilized the law as best as he could. There are so many ways that just made the resistance movement clever as opposed to a depressing struggle, which was how it was portrayed in the movie.

Another example is their word in the lime quarry. Eventually, Mandela fought for them to be able to talk while they work. These conversations in the lime quarry varied from political meetings where the early formations of the new government was discussed. But they also talked about things to pass the time. Like are there Tigers in South Africa?

Its a great colloquial story that maybe didn't need be in the film, but if it was going to be, I feel it was situations like this that needed to be done better.

And that's just the unfortunate thing about this movie.

 This is an incredibly good book. Its incredibly rich. Its a first hand look at an incredibly influential man and there are so many intricacies of the book that the movie did not get.

And I get it, its a film, its not the book. I hate being that guy that says, "Oh this didn't happen in the book!" or "Oh they didn't put this in the movie!". The movie needs to streamline the important things to keep it within a 3 hour time limit.

I almost feel like this book would be better served in a mini series. Because streamlined like this, the film makes issues that, in reality were more complex and didn't have simple answers, suddenly simple and have simple answers. Its just something that I don't feel was totally done correctly, poorly timed, and just didn't feel totally right.

That's not to say the movie doesn't have its moments, its not to say the acting isn't good and the script isn't worked well with, I just can't say the script is incredibly well done.

Overall, I wasn't wild about the casting of Mandela mainly because Idris Elba didn't look like Mandela to me. However, he did a good job with what he could. The film was overly streamlined, and portrayed live people in not the most respectful way in my opinion.

But those are my thoughts on Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, and the book Long Walk to Freedom. Have you read the book? Have you seen the movie? Have you seen both? Have you made this comparison? What do you think? Comment and discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. Here's the music video U2 came out with to come with this film. Its a good song, won best original song. Remember that strange obscure post a while back, this one? Yeah U2 won I believe. Enjoy!