Review - Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

There is no denying that Nelson Mandela was a great man. Since his passing, he is in the public's consciousness in a very big way, so the timing of the release of Justin Chadwick's Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom seemed almost apt, thought it was not in any way planned.

The film itself takes us through Nelson Mandela's life, from his childhood to his presidential inauguration. The film is well-made, if not without a slight sprinkle of Hollywood. Mandela's life after the introduction of the Apartheid in 1948 was a difficult one, as it was for all black South Africans, but the film didn't seem to show it in a way that truly expressed how oppressed these people were. The film only has a 12A (UK) rating, therefore the scenes of violence were sort of skipped over, whereas I felt if the film had been more of an independent endeavour more would have been made of how truly desperate these times were.

The cinematography is certainly not at fault, with beautiful long-shots of a stunning South African backdrop in scenes of Mandela as a child and when he goes back to his home village. I personally enjoyed the use of actuality footage of the world's reaction to the injustice in South Africa. The costume design, especially for Winnie Mandela (Naomie Harris), was very good. I did enjoy the strong contrast between more traditional African dress and well-cut smart suits and dresses.
The acting cannot be faulted either. Idris Elba gave an incredibly strong performance as Mandela; managing to keep hope in his eyes even when there seemed to be none. Naomie Harris stole the show as Winnie Mandela, her character was certainly multi-dimensional. Even at her strongest, there was no denying a certain fear about her for her people.

The main problem with the film, however, was the timescale. It was simply too big and therefore the film seemed to lose focus sometimes. There was so much going on during Mandela's life that fitting  50+ years into 2 hours and 21 minutes was a tall order for any director. The parts leading up to his arrest seemed very rushed, there was not much time to build on his character before his imprisonment, no time to even cover what the breakdown of his first marriage made him feel or the early relationship between Mandela and Winnie.
        If the film had set it's focus purely on Mandela's time in prison how that affected him and how that in turn had affected the segregation of black South Africans, and how Winnie continued to fight for their right to freedom until Mandela's release, then so much more could have been delved into.

The film is based on Mandela's own autobiography and he personally gave permission for the film to be made, so I do not doubt any of the credibility of the story or the feelings, I just think that to try and cover so much of such a great man's life in such a short time was not really doing him enough justice. That said, I would still recommend seeing Long Walk to Freedom.