If there is one man's life story that deserves to be told, it is Nelson Mandela's. After a few interpretations on film, the latest effort - Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom - is based on the words of the man himself, as recorded in his autobiography of the same name. Basically, this is the story he told of himself, starting from his beginnings as a lawyer, the ANC, prison, and the time after his release (including him becoming the president of South Africa).
Though the story is powerful and the life inspiring, the film does not necessarily live up to the greatness of the man. Idris Elba, portraying Mandela, is nothing short of brilliant. Physically, his resemblance is limited and he is only made to look like the man in the older years. While still playing a young Nelson Mandela, he frequently takes his shirt off, which is gratifying in so many ways but probably not the point.
The cutting of the film appears fitful, made up of short scenes, that feel like unfinished thoughts and makes the story somewhat incoherent. The advantage is, of course, that most of us know the story anyway. But is that a good enough excuse to make the film into a lengthy music video?
But what really, really bothers me about this is rather ridiculous because it is unimportant to the story. Winnie Mandela does not seem to age. There comes one scene, set in the mid to late eighties (I think), where a half-hearted attempt of making Naomi Harris look the age she is supposed to be by putting a little grey in her unkempt hair, but throughout most of the film she appears to be in her thirties.
Ultimately, this is the kind of film biography that caters more to the MTV generation of kids with short attention span than anyone who is seriously interested in the life of Nelson Mandela.
I spent the entire Oscar night (and much of the day before) at the packed Gartenbaukino to watch the transmission. The pre-program the theater offered were five films nominated for one thing or another. The heavily favored film to win best documentary feature was one of the film shown - the wonderful Searching for Sugar Man.
This is the story of Detroit singer Sixto Rodriguez, who made two albums in the 1960s/1970s that fell pretty much on deaf ears, even though everyone involved and, really, everyone who ever heard him play cannot explain why he didn't take off. His music is wonderful and the lyrics and songwriting draw comparisons to calibers like Bob Dylan but somehow things didn't happen for him.
But somehow his debut album "Cold Facts" ended up in South Africa at a time when the country was shunned by other nations due to its regime of Apartheid and people withing South Africa were widely shielded from outside influences. Rodriguez singing of speaking up against the establishment triggered something of a musical revolution, as local musicians started to realize that they do have the means to make their voices heard. All of those musicians were heavily influenced by Rodriguez. He sold approximately half a million records in South Africa and the strangest thing is...he didn't even know it.
One day, a journalist took it upon himself to find out more about the singer/songwriter, who was something of a mystery. Nobody knew anything about him. The most important question that needed answering was: How did Rodriguez die? Rumors of him setting himself on fire, blowing his brains out or overdosing on drugs swirled around but nobody knew for sure. When he eventually got a hold of the producer of the first record and at the end of the interview asked his most burning question the journalist was told that Rodriguez was alive and well.
People interested in solving the mystery set up a website about their search for more information. One day, Eva Rodriguez, oldest daughter of the mysterious musician, wrote on the website's forum and left her contacts and finally got them in touch with the man himself. And when we, the audience, finally meet the man he turns out to be the most humble and gracious individual, working on construction sites, not bitter about not having had the success he would have wanted as a young man.
Eventually, he went to South Africa to play a sold out show (the first of many), which marks the climax of this wonderful, wonderful film. And after he played to sold out crowds in South Africa he went right back home to the house he has spent the last few decades in and back to work at the construction sites.
This is such a moving, loving portrait that everyone watching with me seemed to adore as much as I do. In the following Oscar night, along with the awards given to Austrians (Christoph Waltz, Michael Haneke), Searching for Sugar Man winning (as expected) best documentary got the biggest applause from my hometown crowd.
When I got home I went online an purchased both of Rodriguez' available albums.
