Invictus is the sort of
film that is increasingly unmade.   It's decent simplicity and simple message leaves the audience with a usable, optimistic takeaway that explosive comic book epics and gray complexity movies both fail to deliver.  It's worth taking some time to see this holiday season.

The story takes the audience to a South Africa dealing with the political and racial struggles which follow the end of Apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela as the country's first black President.  As in most cultures divided by race, there is anxiety, hatred and fear on all sides.
As members of a culture with its own racial struggles, we know the reality of South Africa is more complex than the story told here.  This film is something less than a globally valid representation of the mixed and messy process of a nation's transitional racial politics.  I've seen documentaries which take on the more difficult issues regarding South Africa and those are valid efforts too.
Watching Batman deal with his inner demons in a Gotham City where everyone seems on the verge of going over to the dark side wins filmmakers points for complexity.   However in the end creating imaginary worlds where no one is trustworthy doesn't empower anyone.  It turns the entire human condition into a sort of confused, morbid joke. However, the world doesn't get changed that way.
Clint Eastwood directed this film. It is becoming clear that Dirty Harry is determined to say something before he walks out of the sound stage door for the last time.  His Grand Torino was honored for its complexity in dealing with life, class and age.   His two movies on Iwo Jima, one from the American and one from the Japanese perspective were sad contemplations on what societies make their soldiers do.   This material is a lot more substantial that 'Go ahead, make my day ever was.'
In Invictus, Eastwood, aided by two impressive actors, takes the decent and obvious road for a story.  As shaken up as the whole world is now, people need to be assured that decent men of courage, keeping their word can earn a just and hopeful goal.
South Africa's Green and Gold Rugby Team has been a hated symbol of Apartheid.  Black South Africans (white South Africans are 'Africans' too) cheer for their opponents. The rugby team's not very good. They're clearly not ready for international competition.   Mandela takes up the team's unpopular cause with the black majority government and enlists their Captain in the cause of making nearly all white team a symbol of national unity.  The team Captain leads the team through a bumpy effort at reaching out to blacks.
Mandela's own security detail, consisting of white and black security officers, works through its own parallel struggle at his insistence.
The victory that matters however isn't on the field, but in the possibility that blacks and whites in South Africa can be on the same side in the things that matter.
In that, Invictus empowers the people who see it to
work towards more happy endings for us all.



William Hamilton (wjhamilton@wjhamilton.com) is an attorney who lives in I'On Village.