by Michael Palmer
Guest Columnist
The film “Invictus” is both stirring entertainment and a history lesson about a remarkable convergence of sport and statesmanship.
The place is South Africa; the year is 1995. Nelson Mandela is a free man after 27 years as a political prisoner, who has become president of a post apartheid country, still in racial turmoil. The event is the World Cup of Rugby, being hosted by the usually formidable national team, The Springboks. This year, however, the team is less than great, but has the opportunity to help create needed national unity and self respect. This true story is the account of Mandela’s forming of an unlikely alliance with the captain, Francois Pienaar, fostering a fever of multi racial support for what was typically viewed as the white man’s sport. The story book ending became one more chapter in Mandela navigating a political and social minefield, using sport and symbols, like some use music, to fuse cohesiveness…contributing to an unexpected win of the championship by beating the seemingly indestructible New Zealand team.
The film is notable, not just because it tells the story well, but because it embeds the narrative in the strength and grace of flawed men, Mandela and Pienaar, trying to do something noble, something “more than.” It is a fascinating study of political leadership, social change, and individual pedigree.
The fiber of these men fits the Victorian poem from which the film takes its title. Both men showcase how big ideas, and the wardrobe of words we use to clothe them, can be well used. However, they can also be badly used. As an example of both, for Nelson Mandela, the poem was an inspiration in prison, but for Timothy McVeigh it was an arrogant and unremorseful statement as he was about to be executed for perpetrating the Oklahoma City bombing. He had no last words, except to refer to his hand written copy of the poem.
The Mandela/McVeigh spectrum indicates that it is the “more than” that should be the pursued prize. There is no simple formula for this, but there are traits, after which these two men demonstrably chase.
One trait is the possessing of an Invictus-type drive. It is the whim of most New Year’s resolutions which leaves them often as easy to make as to mock. And wasn’t it Yogi Berra who said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”? This sort of whim and uncertainty are best rivaled by the deliberate hunt for more. They concur with Nuala O’Faolain’s fierce, albeit imperfect, refusal to settle, and “need to howl”.
This refusal reflects a large kind of life which tends toward a maturing grasp of human nature, in both its angst and its wonder. It’s a dualism where Hamlet meets Don Quixote, as a melancholy knight of sorts. These are the ones who feel their own pain as well as that of others, and whose own wounds, instead of crippling, morph into a muscular care for the good of others. They understand the power of lost things as well as the tyranny of things past, aware that even a sight or sound or smell or word can retain all their abilities to wound intact. Armed with this, it matters to them when they see someone whose body now resembles the question mark they have become. It matters when they see someone who is under such weight, that when they sit, the chair seems to groan in agreement. These people are such a good place to be that they usually make others feel vaguely homesick…because they strangely feel like home.
Maybe most important for healthy Invictus types is that it is love that drives their story. Love is what prevents their story from feeling mechanical or contrived, the way you feel rusting machinery cranking away. The point is, if you are going to fail, fail at loving. Sadly, too many love when it is convenient and easy. For these, when faced with difficulty, it is a short walk to living in retreat, and being willing to swap caring for cool distance.
Invictus-type people tend toward thoughtful authenticity; they refuse to phone in passable impersonations, lives that are more skywriting and sleepwalking than grounded realism. And they want their thinking to be vibrant, a floating set of anchors, constantly searching for better ways of seeing, all the while resisting their own ideology, and even their theology, ever becoming pathology.
Also, they believe that language itself can shape reality, and therefore respect and enjoy the work of words. They agree with Sartre that “words are loaded pistols,” and ask with Sylvia Plath, “What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?” They are looking for words that both adequately explain and that make a difference.
The grim reality is that too many lives which could be grist for fascinating stories often aren’t. The lofty side of the Invictus story is more like “carpe diem” on high alert, while cobbling together the traits of “more than” thinking, of love, and of well used words, with the desire to unbreak someone’s heart as much as it is to fix a culture.
In regard to these things, the film exudes inspiration, how to summon it, and how to communicate it. And as such, while it is worth seeing…the ideas are worth even more.