I Like Clint Eastwood, I say that because he’ll probably outlive me, and were I to proclaim my dislike he’d probably come get me on my death bed and drop kick the shit out of me whilst whistling the immortalized jingle from Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo –The good the bad and the ugly-. That being said he knows sweet fuck all about rugby. Highlighted in the film Invictus’s construction of the game of rugby especially scrums. Yank directors have been constructing lines of scrimmage -ala Oliver Stone in Any Given Sunday-, for years with intense close ups, slow panning movements, montages of game day paraphernalia and distorted grunts, this makes it seem heroic, masculine and all out fuckin fantastic. The same treatment done to a scrum, reads like a homoerotic love scene outside of an Indian restaurant.
Invictus is hot like lava and not curry, I liked it up until the homosexual pterodactyls invaded the screen in the form of a scrum.
The film is littered with a series of insightful and astute motifs to construct the tale of discord, hope, redemption and shiny shirts. My favourite being the awesome Johan De Villiers in the oh-so fabulous pragtig TV1 studios! Outside of that there’s the beautiful and genuine racial tension threatening to tear a nation apart and most importantly the relationship between Morgan FreemanMandela and Matt Damon.
Damon and FreemanMandela do a stellar job in their portrayal of two of South Africa’s favourite sons, FreemanMandela’s so good that he reminds me of the time my dad nailed my mom and I was born, it was epic, like him.
Invictus is slow yet engrossing, Eastwood’s film focused around the character of Nelson FreemanMandela who shrinks to vicious alienation and loneliness. It’s heartbreaking to see someone invest themselves so greatly in something that no one else seems willing to support him on. As the essence of the text, his ageing brown mask stretches across white walls in echoey hallways waiting to be filled by the screams of joy the character so undoubtedly craves. Eastwood never trivializes South Africa he keeps it genuine and organic, remarkably he gives it interiority told through the balanced egalitarian racism fired from both Black and White which could come across as preachy and inspire some kind of 1994 rainbow nation bullshit but instead remains genuine. Both sides with machetes concealed wait to destroy each other, but then this stupid game called rugby gets in the way and all of a sudden everyone’s hugging, kissing and furthering the spread of the AIDS virus.
Racism’s fuck-childish and Eastwood highlights this repeatedly, not by getting some mildly retarded kids to talk about how they don’t see colour, but rather by just simply showing that its retarded .The tale is one of despair and unjustified hope, something that both Peinaar and FreemanMandela embody. It’s amazing to think that one would be so bold to think that entire nation’s stability and self-determination lies in a game about 15 men hell bent on molesting one another, and fuck it’s pretty damn ambitious too, but Eastwood manages to get away with it and in the process creates a tenderness and sincerity in its execution.
It’s not amazing but it’ll catch you giggling at the absurdity of it all and if that ain’t enough Morgan FreemanMandela owns more shit than Christiano taking a free kick. So what!?
Dig it! Because all the cool kids will hate on it.
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