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Movie Review: Invictus

by Pia de Solenni 

 

The Christmas season generally provides a range of family friendly programming for television. But I found myself grumpier than usual as I watched so called family programming that I would be hesitant to view with my nieces and nephews, much less my own children if I had any. Aside from Pixar films and older productions, I find most of the current content to be morally ambiguous and overly saccharine at best.

My advice? Skip it all and go see Invictus, director Clint Eastwood’s movie about South African President Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar, captain of the South African rugby team, the Springboks, and how a sport unified a divided nation.

Put simply, the Springboks were a strong symbol of apartheid when Mandela was elected president. (warning: plot spoilers) While many believed that the team should have been disbanded, Mandela thought that it needed to become a symbol for all South Africans, black and white alike. Thus begins his relationship with Pienaar as the failing team improves and goes on to win the 1995 World Cup, defying all expectations.

To be honest, contemporary rugby culture precluded any possible interest that I might have had in the game. I only went to the movie because my husband wanted to see it. But Invictus presents the sport as it should be and perhaps as it once was: a game for hooligans played by gentlemen.

Traditionally, rugby’s ethos as a team sport is distinct: there is little celebration of an individual’s score, because each player understands that any success is the result of team effort, not individual achievement. The film underscores this in its portrayal of fly half Joel Stransky’s drop goal that wins the Cup for South Africa. In most films about a winning team, we would have seen a development of the character whose action wins the game. In Invictus, we don’t know anything about Stransky’s character apart from the team as a whole.

A similar sense can be seen in this video clip of the Barbarians (a collective team representing the best of five countries) vs. the All Blacks (New Zealand). Watching the grainy clip carefully, you will see that in this winning play every player on the Barbarians handles the ball at some point, emphasizing the cumulative nature of the sport.

My first rugby experience was a tournament in which my husband played. Before his game even started, I was grateful for our new insurance cards as I saw the casualties of the first matches. Rugby players wear no protective equipment. Think football minus all the gear. In one scene in Invictus, a poor child is asked if he knows the rules of rugby. He replies that you wait until the referee is not looking and then you pummel your opponent. His response underscores the collective imperative for sportsmanship in the game.

The character of Nelson Mandela also brings a depth to the film. While acknowledging his personal failings, the movie emphasizes Mandela’s strategic wisdom in uniting people divided by deep racial tensions. His same thinking could be applied in a host of situations worldwide and even in our own homes.

As in all situations of divided enmity, each side has something to learn about the other. Eastwood illustrates this in numerous ways, from his depiction of the black security forces incorporating white security officers or the experience of the Springbok players as they visit poor neighborhoods utterly foreign to their own reality.

The emphasis on sportsmanship, honor and teamwork echoes the thought of Mayor Bing of Detroit in this recent interview. Asked to compare the basketball of his experience to today, the former NBA player, now mayor, commented: "Oh there's no doubt that today's players are far superior athletes and leapers. But now it's an individual sport. Back then we played together as a team. That's why we might have beaten them."

At a recent meeting of the Pontifical Council for Culture I attended, Archbishop Vigneron, also of Detroit, discussed the unique ability of sports to form the culture at large. He uses the example of baseball in his Christmas column this year.

Sports have been besieged by scandal in recent years, but they also have the potential to build character, not only of individuals, but of entire groups of people. Played rightly, they teach lessons of communication, teamwork, honor, discipline, obedience, and even humility.

Christmas should emphasize our common experience of humanity much in need of its Savior. Invictus reminds us precisely of our shared humanity, which helps to make it a family-friendly movie. There are some instances of crass language (including one f-bomb in the middle of a heated rugby match) and a mild sexual reference. Overall, though, I'm more comfortable with their context than, say, an over-sexualized, ditsy princess or the potty humor that plagues some story lines.

Perhaps especially young members of the family won’t relate to the movie, but any child preteen and older, especially boys, would probably respond to this story that encourages us to be bigger than ourselves. For my money, Invictus  deserves a spot right alongside Cinderella Man.

 

Pia de Solenni writes from Seattle, WA. She can be reached via FaceBook and Twitter. (Her website is getting a prolonged makeover and is currently offline.)

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)