Good movies don’t come so often these days. But each year, you will see quite a few that’s worthy of an Oscar nod. One of them is Invictus, a film directed by (not surprisingly) Clint Eastwood, starring his longtime friend Morgan Freeman (which he co-starred in Million Dollar Baby) as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as the South African Rugby Team Captain François Pienaar.
Just like some of Clint’s previous works (Mystic River, Gran Turino, Changeling), Invictus features quite a number of musical-score driven scenes, most of which are wonderfully crafted. This only proves the Eastwood, as a film director for so many years, still has the magic touch for powerful narratives. Perhaps the only downside to this kind of storytelling is that it tends to have a slow pace, especially at the beginning. The audience needs to be patient enough, though, to get to the gist of the film – where everything falls into place. While Freeman and Damon are nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively, this film is not nominated for the Oscar Best Picture with Eastwood taken off the Best Director nominee list. Freeman portrayed the former South African leader quite well (although his accent gave him away in some scenes) while Damon as the 6’3 Pienaar is pretty convincing (save for Damon’s height which is about 5″10).
From the movie poster alone, one would clearly see that this is not a typical biopic. Rather, it is a well-directed adaptation of John Carlin’s book (Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation) which focuses on post-apartheid South Africa when Mandela rose to power and brought unity to his nation. And he did so with the help of the Springboks (the South African team) who fought against all odds to win the Rugby Union World Cup in 1995.
In one scene, Mandela (Freeman) intimated to Pienaar (Damon) that there was a poem that kept him going through the years of his incarceration (in another seen, Mandela gave a piece of paper to the rugby team captain where the poem is supposedly written).
This poem by William Ernest Henley was aptly called “Invictus” (a Latin word for unconquered or invincible).
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The Meek Mind 