Invictus

I may of missed the point of Clint Eastwood's Invictus, but I thought the first half was much stronger than the second. In the opening moments, newly elected South African President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) must deal with his new occupation's complicated demands, many of which have arisen from the historic racial tensions between black and white South Africans. His approach to governing is unexpected: let's try and rebuild post-Apartheid South Africa as one nation, forgetting the gross injustices inflicted upon the black population and focusing instead upon what can be done to positively change the system's current composition. Considering the black population's grievances and the fact that Mandela spent 27 years in a prison cell as a result of his activism, this Ghandiesque position is commendable insofar as it prefers bonding to bloodshed. While dealing with the strains of office, Mandela takes a shining to the Springboks Rugby Team, captained by Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), due to the fact that South Africa is about to host the Rugby World Championship. Mandela's support for the Springboks is controversial insofar as they have been seen as a symbol of Apartheid by the black population for decades, South Africa's black residents generally cheering for the opposition. But Mandela sees the team as possessing the cultural power to unite South Africa's black and white populations, and believes that if they win the Rugby World Championship it will bring said populations closer together. This is the main point of the film and as it progresses it becomes the dominant focus, going so far as to show 15 to 20 minutes of the final championship match, which the Springboks win. I thought that Invictus would have been a lot stronger had it primarily focused upon the serious political demands of Mandela's first term in office, keeping the rugby match in the background for a longer period of time, and replacing scenes like the one where Mandela greets the entire team with others demonstrating the severity of the South African racial divide. This divide is mentioned, referred to, and recognized throughout Invictus's second half, but the manner in which it is showcased is far to warm and fuzzy for my liking, thereby minimizing the effects of South Africa's World Rugby Championship victory by overlooking the grim social realities that victory was symbolically supposed to overcome.