Eastwood plods through inspiring tale
Despite Morgan Freeman giving an outstanding performance as Mandela, the story of South Africa's 1995 World Cup win could be better, says Andrew M Brown

5 February 2010

Invictus
12A cert, 133 mins

Clint Eastwood's new film Invictus is worthy, stolid and one-paced. It's a straightforward account of the lead-up to the 1995 Rugby World Cup when Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) boldly decided to support the Springboks and their captain François Pienaar (Matt Damon), using the team as a symbol in an effort to unite the rainbow nation.

The main trouble with the film is that it lacks suspense, apart from the last section where the pace picks up for the final in which the Springboks played the All Blacks, which is skilfully realised. Banned from international competition on account of apartheid, the Springboks at the beginning of the film are woefully inexperienced, as well as despised or ignored by blacks, and written off by commentators. The story of their perseverance through the World Cup with Pienaar's inspiring leadership, the way they carry the nation with them, and the eventual surprise result should be thrilling. But the filmmakers use up too much of the film with painstaking exposition showing, for instance, Mandela taking over the South African administration. The film opens with a view of the Springboks training on their lush green pitch in their gleaming cotton shirts, while on the other side of the road black children in rags kick a soccer ball around on parched brown scrubland. It is the day of Mandela's release, a national celebration. "Remember this day, boys," the Springboks coach says sourly. "This is the day our country went to the dogs."

Eastwood is known and respected by actors as a quiet director who does not interfere and can be satisfied with a single take. Here he is coasting. Partly because of a lacklustre, by-the-numbers script by Anthony Peckham, the high drama that distinguishes Eastwood's best work is missing. But it is an extraordinary story and Morgan Freeman is outstanding as Mandela.

He captures his style of speech and conveys his presence, his air of decency, as well as his age and frailty. "Invictus", incidentally, is the title of an inspirational poem by William Ernest Henley which Mandela relied on to keep going during his 27 years' incarceration, mostly on Robben Island. He hands this to Pienaar before the World Cup so that he and his team may gain strength from such lines as "Under the bludgeonings of chance / My head is bloody, but unbowed."

Damon is not as gigantic a man as Pienaar was - in fact, he's fairly short - but he makes up for it by appearing heavily bulked-up. We get scant sense of the depths of Pienaar's character, any internal struggle or self-doubt. Perhaps there were none of these things, but as a result it's a rather flat performance. Mandela proposes using the Springboks for public relations, really, so that a new enthusiasm for rugby may bring the nation together. By backing the plan, Pienaar risks the hostility of his teammates. What was driving him? We are left none the wiser.

It is hard to imagine a film such as Pavel Lounguine's The Island (Ostrov in Russian) being made by a western European director, since its preoccupations - faith, prayer, redemption and Eastern Orthodox spirituality - seem so insistently non-commercial. Then there's the uncongenial, though very beautiful, setting - in the desolate, crystalline permafrost at the very north-western corner of Russia at the shore of the White Sea (beautifully photographed by Andrey Zhegalov). And the whole thing is founded on the not universally shared assumption that God exists, and that such notions as sin and eternity are real and palpable.

The hero, Anatoly (Pyotr Mamonov), is a true eremite of the old-fashioned variety. It is now 1976, but during the war Anatoly committed a terrible crime, which Lounguine shows us, and which explains his extreme penitence. His life from that moment in 1942 is an attempt to cleanse his soul. The film is a parable and a meditation on the words of the Jesus Prayer, which Anatoly recites aloud, continuously: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me a sinner."

He lives in an isolated boiler-house on the fringes of a monastery and sleeps on the coals. He is borderline insane in a florid way that draws the attention of ordinary folk from the mainland, for whom he performs a sort of healing ministry, though we are never certain he really believes in the special powers that are attributed to him. He is a holy fool and his eccentricities, especially his total rejection of worldly comfort, serve as a means to bring people closer to God. He also exerts a gradual transformative effect on the spirituality of two of the monks, Fr Job (Dmitry Dyuzhev) and Fr Filaret, the Superior (Victor Sukhorukov, with a face of childlike innocence behind his massive beard), demonstrating to them how weak their faith is and how attached they are to the things of this world. It is a profoundly spiritual work.