Mandela: Un long chemin vers la liberté

I'm calling it now: 'Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom' WILL be nominated for Best Picture by the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Why? It has all the right ingredients. It portrays a worldwide hero cinematically and truthfully (not that the Academy cares about the truth, just look at Argo). Nelson Mandela wasn't a perfect man and the filmmakers admit to that straight of the bat. They also don't just go from scene to scene plotting out Mandela's life, they take their time and allow the audience to enter South Africa and its people and places. It's a very cinematic film. It also allows the audience to leave the theater inspired. I found myself suddenly having a greater appreciation for finding the good in people. I definitely credit this to Alex Heffes, the musical composer who really pulled off a score that (I would say) is better than some of John Williams' score. It's made by an underdog filmmaker, (something the Academy always looks for) and is even endorsed by Mandela himself. It's a fantastic film that I have had the pleasure to see and I hope to see Justin Chadwick and Anant Singh at the Oscars in February.

Watched it earlier tonight. A reviewer was right when he said Chadwick had done a by-the-numbers job on it. I am Not a fan of biopics. However, I did enjoy 'Gandhi', and, to a relatively lesser extent, 'Aviator'. Those characters too were undeniably compelling, which made the tales all the more riveting. Mandela's character is definitely one such. However, something was lost in translation when it came to filming Madiba's life's work, ironically, in the year that he was finally laid to rest. No fault lies with the performers, but choosing to sideline a great many supporting characters and not depict the horrors of apartheid in the year of '12 years a slave' (the preview for which played before this one) seems a tad ironic, in not giving the audience something powerful to root against. I don't know if the responsibility rests with the original work itself (in terms of skimming over the details, that is), but the punch, the power, that was sorely needed to make this a rousing epic that it should aspire for, is missing. Someone needs to remake this, if possible, with the same cast, and hopefully make it more powerful/riveting. The old-age makeup on Elba also took me out of the movie multiple times. U2's 'Ordinary love' plays during the end-credits, but I don't know if the movie would have benefited more from it being played over one of the key sequences (take your pick). Perhaps Justin Chadwick was not the man for this job (He took the bite out of 'the other Boleyn girl', so that aspect's consistent enough, that did not make him suitable for this job in any case). Having said all that, this is still a decent effort, just about right in most departments, and far better than other by-the-numbers predictable/routine fare playing at the local multiplex.