Friday 27 December 2013

A biopic that leaves a lot out.

   Mandela: Long walk to Freedom
   Starring Idris Elba and Naomie Harris. Directed by Justin Chadwick.



 'Mandela:Long Walk to Freedom' which is based on Nelson Mandela's autobiography
 was released a few weeks after Mandela's death on December 5, 2013. this film is three things.
    First off, it's a love story. Here, Nelson Mandela, a rising young black lawyer in white ruled South Africa, meets a young telegenic social worker called Winnie Madikizela played by Naomie Harris. The two fall in love, get married, go to prison  and then fall out of love.
     Second it's the story of the black South African struggle for freedom against a violent white racist white apartheid regime. In the end the black and brown people succeed but they pay a terrible price. For example, Nelson Mandela played by Idris Elba spent a backbreaking 27 years in prison for his violent acts. Tens of thousands of other anti-apartheid activists were killed in the struggle, or tortured or both.
    Finally, the film shows us the true side of Winnie Madikizela  Mandela who was a genuine heroine. "I piss on you," she shouts at one of her white torturers and she does. She serves a lesser time in prison than her husband. Yet she emerges from behind bars as a true revolutionary while her husband moderates his views   
      This portrayal of Winnie Mandela is long overdue. Too often  in the media she was shown to be a murderer who threw burning rubber tires or 'necklaces' as they were called over other black people. The fact that many of these people were black informants or snitches wasn't mentioned .
     'Mandela' is chockful of mostly white-on-black violence, inspirational speeches by Mandela and tender love scenes between Winnie and Nelson. All of this is interesting and well-acted. But this biopic leaves out one big thing and it's called 'communism'.
     Communist rulers in the 20th century were tyrants. No one can deny this. Yet the now defunct Soviet Union and East Germany, as well as Castro's Cuba and non-communist but socialist  Algeria gave the Mandela-led African National Congress, money advice and weapons  to help  bring down the white dictators of South Africa.  The South African Communist party played a key role in bringing down apartheid too, but none of this is in the film either
     Nor does 'Mandela' deal honestly with the negotiations between nelson Mandela and his white rulers. The white leaders, led by South african president. F.W. de Clerk, played by Gys de Villiers were certainly worried about their fate in a black-ruled South Africa. Yet they also worried about what would happen to the economy.
     After all, the original freedom charter of the African National Congress, called for the nationalization of the the white -owned banks, diamond mines and gold resources. Mandela and the ANC leadership scrapped this idea and some blacks were angry.
     "My husband went into prison a revolutionary," Winnie Madikizela Mandela told Nobel Prize winning author V.S. Naipaul. Yet when he came out of prison, she said, he had changed his politics .
     None of this in the film and I didn't expect it to be. Nelson Mandela emerges in the film as a true hero, angry but forgiving and wise and patient. Yet this film isn't the final word on Nelson Mandela.
      It's a feel-good film for a feel-good conservative era. I enjoyed watching it, but a whole lot was left out of the story.
    
    
   

Monday 16 December 2013

Mathew McConaughey Stars in a Film About AIDS.

'Dallas Buyers Club' Starring Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto and Jennifer Garner. Directed by Jean Marc Vallee.


   'Dallas Buyers Club' opens with a mustached, pencil slim Matthew McConaughey in a rodeo, up close to the bull riders' pen. The film ends with McConaughey playing Ron Woodroof riding a bull in a rodeo. In between these moments, Woodroof has died.
      Woodroof is a cocaine-snorting, hard drinking, homophobic electrician. He's a Texan redneck who hates gays. Then suddenly he's HIV positive which came from screwing an infected woman and not wearing a condom.
    "You've tested positive for HIV," the doctor at a Dallas hospital tells Woodroof. "You have 30 days left" to live.
      A shell-shocked Woodroof can't believe this. Then he rebels against the verdict and the medically imposed use of the drug AZT that's supposed to help AIDS
 patients. Still a businessman, he sets up the Dallas Buyers Club which HIV infected people can join. Here they can buy alternative drugs that will keep them alive.
      In the U.S. of A. in the 1980's, which is where the film takes place, Woodroof's course of action leads  to clashes with the government. Along the way Woodroof meets Rayon, played by Jared Leto. Rayon is a transexual who at first disgusts Woodroof, but then he cures Woodroof of his homophobia.
      Director Jean Marc Vallee is a Quebecker who in this film shows us the grim side of HIV infected lives and the terrible prejudice the disease provokes. Yet there are also decent people in the film like Doctor Vass played by Griffin Dunne. Dunne saves lives in his Mexican clinic.
     "I want kids," Woodroof says at one point in the film. Yet Woodroof never did live to have children. His life, which is based on a true story, ended in 1992, seven years later than the Dallas doctor predicted.
     Matthew McConaughey has now changed in his film career from being a heavily muscled hunk, into now being an anorexic looking actor. "Dallas Buyers Club' sometimes goes over the top and sometimes becomes too sentimental. Still, it's well worth seeing.
     

Wednesday 4 December 2013

A Feel Good Film That Has Some Very Bad Parts In It

  'Philomena'. Starring Steve Coogan and Judy Dench. Directed by Stephen Frears.



    The Roman Catholic Church has a lot to answer for. That's the message I took away from 'Philomena'.
     In this film Martin Sixsmith and Philomena Lee played by Judy Dench come together. Their enemy in the end is the Catholic Church's true believers
     Sixsmith is a former spin doctor who's now a journalist again. He lost his spin doctor's job with Tony Blair's government in the United Kingdom .Philomena is an  ageing retired nurse who wants to track down her son from long ago.
      Lee had a son when she was an unmarried 17 year-old in the 1950's in a very Catholic Ireland. The nuns of the Sacred Heart took her in and then took her baby. Then they sold it to rich Americans and then forced Lee to work for years for nothing in their nunnery. This, by the way, is a true story.
      "Can you help me find him?" Lee asks Martin at the film's beginning.In the end they do track him down, as the journey from Ireland to the U.S. and back to Ireland again.
     The film takes swipes at U.S. Republicans and Catholicism along the way. Philomena remains a devout Catholic. The cynical and snobby Martin is  a non-believer. Martin belongs to the British upper middle class. Philomena isn't rich and loves mass culture.
    Still, they stay friends as the argue, chatter and drive through beautiful Irish and American countrysides. Director Stephen Frears doesn't show us too many scenes from big city America and small city Ireland. Philomena and Martin do visit a few big historical sites in Washington, D.C. And Martin does try to jog along some scenic pathways.Yet overall 'Philomena' takes place in countryside and suburbs.
     "The Catholic Church should go to confession," an enraged Martin says near the film's end. I agree but I don't think that's going to happen.
     'Philomena' in the end is a fell good film and a good film too. It show us a past that the Catholic Church fathers would rather hide.