A word for "people".
One is the relationship with the outside world: it is reflected in his interactions with his parents, his family, his ex-wife, his ex-wife, his wife (not introduced in this film, but Mandela remarried in 1998), children, comrades-in-arms, and political enemies, participating in anti-apartheid , a movement dedicated to national reconciliation and the promotion of democratic concepts.
One is his relationship with himself: he went from heir to a tribal dynasty, to a law student (who was expelled for boycotting school policies), then to political movements, from non-violent movements to violent non-cooperation, and after spending his life behind bars Advocating forgiveness, character and thought change in each process.
And the two strokes are intertwined. Especially for political figures who influence world history, the times require heroes to advance, and heroes are also changed by the times. The two may not always end well. In an instant, today's heroes may be thrown into the dust of history, or they may become ambiguous characters. The longer they walk side by side with the current situation, and the more the characters themselves change under the influence of the environment, the more mottled the story of the wheel of history and the power of the mantra will be.
The harder it is to squeeze into the capacity of a movie. For "South Africa's greatest man" and the "anti-apartheid movement" that it symbolized, that was simply impossible. Not to mention 143 minutes, even if it burns for 6 hours like Abel Gance, it may not be enough (the "Napoleon" that can make people see bedsores only talks about the Brumaire coup).
Greed for more has been chewed, not to mention the taboo.
The film is based on Mandela's autobiography, "The Road to Freedom," which tells the story of his thirty-year journey from a community lawyer to the president of South Africa.
When people give themselves biography, they will always proceed from their own standpoint and avoid some sharp questions that are not conducive to themselves.
Mandela's family relationship was not handled very well, and his descendants are still struggling with family property and other issues.
In addition, although he is very charismatic and good at provocative speeches, he is a very good "image spokesperson", but he lacks the experience and talent in governing, and he did not solve many practical problems in his short presidential career.
The ANC has had internal problems since its inception. The means of winning elections four times after 1994 have also been brilliant. The current President Zuma, students who are a little concerned about international politics, should have heard of many "good things" that this gentleman has done.
These "spots on the sun", the sun himself is reluctant to add more footnotes, and the film is taboo and will not be interpreted privately. . This is another big difficulty in making biographies of politicians: you can't just bury them like you did with Assange.
So after watching this movie, the understanding of Mandela is actually the same as reading his wiki. Simple and pale two words are enough to sum up - great man. Aside from having flirted with a few flesh and blood, the rest is the same as when I walked down a textbook.
In fact, the textbook does not say that you can't shoot. Even if the young man who "leads the knife into a quick success and lives up to the boy's head" does not have any impressive personality, at least there is a story of happiness and hatred. If Mandela is added to the ANC, his role in the anti-apartheid movement, and his ideological transformation and growth in this process, will be more enriched, plus his conflict with his ex-wife, his ex-wife's love story With the introduction of the background of the era, this film can completely end in court. It is also a biography of revolutionary figures that beautifully incites the theme of "freedom and equality".
Sequels 2 and 3 are enough for the rest of Mandela's life.
But the screenwriter should not have the habit of reading biographies at ordinary times, so he actually challenged Mission Impossible, and put all the prison scenes and post-prison scenes into it.
The most important change in Mandela's own mind was made in prison. He obtained a law degree by correspondence in prison, exercised his will in the targeted torture and abuse by prison guards, learned tolerance and forgiveness, and established friendships with some prison guards.
Although these changes are drastic and dramatic, they are all "internal", that is, they are all in one stroke of the word "human". The constant living environment all year round and almost zero communication with the outside world greatly reduce the possibility of presenting character changes through dialogues and events.
During the more than 20 years he served in prison, the international situation, South African politics, and Mandela himself changed simultaneously on both sides of the bars. Outside the prison window, a situation is formed that allows him to be released from prison and serve as the narrator of the president. Inside the prison window, he cultivates a hero who has the ability to support the building in the future.
These two bridges, which are crucial to the "After Prison" segment, are not reflected in the film.
When the plot is so difficult to start, why insist on not using the narration solution, which is faster and less expensive?
Because there is no character OS, Mandela's changes cannot be reflected. The focus is naturally on his second wife, Winnie, who is still active in the larger environment. The original idea was also good. She wanted to show the dissatisfaction of the entire South African black community against white people from her transformation, so as to paint a good background for the third part - racial reconciliation.
It's a pity that the third part of the theme of the film's general leader is also the weakest part of the whole film. Due to the lack of background information, the characters have not been fully formed. Even the main program of ANC, the importance of Mandela and her friends in the organization has not been clearly explained to the audience until now.
Mandela used a speech to completely resolve the violent conflict, and used two or three sentences to persuade the ANC to decentralize. These plots are like game bugs. It is full of the arrogant and dazzling spirit of "existence is reasonable".
The second part and the third part, which broke off from each other in the account of the characters in the plot, forgot the first part in the hardships and storms. The power of "(I finally know how to use narration here, what did I do before?) - In fact, I don't need to read "Mandela Biography", I already knew it when I watched "Harry Potter".
If you haven't read Mandela's autobiography, or are not willing to read it, you can view this film as a "condensed version".
－－－－－－－The dividing line at the end of the viewing experience－－－－－－
As far as the relationship between the current situation and the hero is concerned, the overall situation always affects the individual's thoughts and actions "instantly", and this influence may last until the individual dies. Conversely, the impact of an individual's actions on the overall situation can only be For a while, only thoughts can influence the direction of the wheel of history.
Therefore, for these modern and contemporary political figures who have read biographies, I personally think that Gandhi is the only one with the attribute of "greatness" ("slogan" and "idea" are not equivalent).
And Mandela is "iconic". After he was imprisoned, he did not have any influence on the outside world, but his image became the "flag" of the movement (similar to Mockingjay in Hunger Game).
In this anti-apartheid movement, the person I admire most is Frederik Willem de Klerk, who was ineligible to sit on the podium on the day of the World Cup in South Africa, the last white president of South Africa who decided to abolish apartheid and release Mandela.
Whatever his motives for making these decisions, his ability to find alliances at the right time, solve problems, and wield power at his hands earns my highest rating for a statesman: pragmatic. Compared with "everyone learns to love", this kind of empty talk that sounds beautiful but has no practical value, popularizing education and reducing the uneven distribution of public resources are the most practical policies to mediate ethnic conflicts.
Of course Mandela is also an amazing person.
On the way to watch this movie, when I was about to leave the subway station, I saw a young man collapsed at the exit from a distance. There were a few people around him who were checking his situation. They should have called the police - I thought so, and almost walked past him.
It was after battling a low-grade fever that I turned around and ran to the police - info was closed on Sunday, but I remember passing a few uniformed millets before the first conveyor belt. After failing, I went to the ground to ask for help. I saw Pompier's car as soon as I opened my eyes, so I had to call someone. Someone had already stepped forward before me.
When I entered the theater, I was still thinking about how easy it is to become the kind of person I despised in the past, just one more second and one more step. This is also one of the reasons why I don't want to develop too close a relationship with human beings - to fall, you only need to fall, but to rise requires climbing.
Mandela isn't just in jail, it's a hostile jungle—and the film hides a lot of the harshness of his torture in prison. Not only freedom but also personal dignity is deprived. And he was able to climb up in twenty years, which is really commendable.
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