Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom- Review

Director-Justin Chadwick
2013

Following Nelson Mandala's biography, the film follows Mandala from being a promising young lawyer to becoming a 'terrorist' to prison through to becoming president.




This was without a doubt an effecting film. It made me think about how South Africa only really stopped apartheid the year before I was born. However I think my mum, who I went to see this with got quite a bit more out of it than me. I knew the basics of Mandela's life like most people, whereas my mum lived at the time and took interest. Unfortunately, though a good film, this meant that a large proportion of the film seemed quite confusing to me. 10 years could be summed up in a couple of minutes, big events, personal and political were only skated over. I didn't find out what the group that Mandela is recruited to at the start was until very close to the end.
I think that the film was trying to cover so much information, it didn't bother explaining many things which is all good and well for those who know quite a bit about Nelson Mandela, but those who know less could be left a bit in the dark. This film celebrates a great mans life rather than informs the viewer about it.
Another symptom of the attempt to rush through so many important events was that the camera seemed to zoom around at an incredible speed. Every cut and scene seemed to be incredibly short, the bear minimum that got the point across.
This is not to say it didn't interest me. I was captivated, and needed to use all my mental energy to keep up, so I certainly wasn't wandering. The performances were all fantastic and sympathetic. It was lovely to watch. There were no dud moments as far as I am aware.
I think possibly something like a T.V series exploring Mandela's life may have been more informative, as there were a lot of facts I wanted to know, like who was the man who was arrested with Mandela who was obviously considered white? The film certainly whet my appetite to find out more.
Overall I really enjoyed the film, I just didn't manage to glean as much information as to what was actually going on. I feel the film only scraped the surface. However that is fair enough considering how much they had to cover in such a short time.