Invictus and the rainbow moment that evaporated

Share

Clint Eastwood's new movie Invictus is a celebration of a euphoric moment in South African history. But the film goes one ambitious step further: It portrays that moment as a turning point, the dawn of racial harmony in the land of apartheid. And even its cast members admit that this rainbow-coloured view of South Africa is far from the reality of today.

Audiences in North America will walk out of the theatre on a high, touched by the scenes of blacks and whites hugging each other at South Africa's improbable triumph at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, inspired by Nelson Mandela himself. As the credits roll, there is real-life footage of township blacks playing rugby, no longer just the white man's game. It's a happily-ever-after ending.

Except that the truth is not quite that simple. The racial tensions - the black allegations of racism, the white resentments of black rule, even the rugby racism - have never disappeared. "The World Cup was like taking a drug, and then it wears off," says Matt Stern, the South African actor who plays one of Mandela's white bodyguards. "It was a short-term thing. There are still a lot of fears, a lot of corruption. In the old days, the guys didn't steal enough that you'd notice it. Now if there's $10-million in the budget, they steal $12-million. It's like a free-for-all."

Directed by Clint Eastwood, Invictus stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.

Stern and other cast members were promoting the film this week in summer sunshine at a luxury hotel in the Sandhurst suburb of Johannesburg, whose lush gardens are walled off from the streets with heavily guarded gates. It was a discreet reminder of the unofficial segregation that continues in South Africa today, where the wealthy suburbs are still populated mainly by whites who live behind electric fences and high walls.

Stern, a well-known Afrikaner singer and television actor, is a key figure in the film's depiction of the Mandela strategy of racial integration among the presidential bodyguards - a strategy that is initially resisted by the black and white security agents, until they finally unite in ecstasy over the rugby victory.

The film is based on Playing the Enemy, an acclaimed 2008 book by British journalist John Carlin, who revealed the behind-the-scenes details of Mandela's risky attempt to avert a civil war by persuading South Africans of all races to unite behind the Springboks, the rugby team that was long associated with apartheid. Carlin compares the story to "a parable, or a fairy tale" - yet one that happened in real life and can still happen again.

Stern didn't like Carlin's book, and his comments reveal the continuing tensions that the film glosses over. "I found the book biased against the Afrikaners," he says. "From his book's perspective, we did everything wrong, and nothing right." Like many other whites, he also dislikes South Africa's program of black economic empowerment, a form of affirmative action for black entrepreneurs. "I think it's reverse racism," he says bluntly.

Another Afrikaner actor, Marguerite Wheatley, plays Nerine, the fiancée of Springboks captain François Pienaar (played by Matt Damon). She is dismayed by South Africans who have gone onto websites to attack the film, some even claiming that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist who planted bombs in the apartheid years.

"A lot of the Afrikaans people - and black people - are still very racial," she says. "And we have to change that. Affirmative action has suppressed a lot of people and made them unhappy, but I understand why they did it. I think it's a bullet we have to bite."

Stern and Wheatley both believe South Africa's race relations are improving, even if Stern suspects that it could take generations to resolve the tensions. This is still a land of racial solitudes. A survey this year found 46 per cent of South Africans never socialize with people of other races at home. Racial incidents in rugby have continued to this day, with the Soweto Rugby Club at one point quitting a local league because of racial taunts from white fans.

Etienne van Eck, an Afrikaner who is now a legal investigator in Vancouver, was one of Mandela's bodyguards in 1995 (given the name Etienne Feyder in the movie). The film shows him learning to admire Mandela's leadership. "He changed me," van Eck says today. "I cherish that experience. He showed the world that if you treat adversaries with dignity and respect, you can change how they think."

But the former bodyguard says he is worried that race relations are deteriorating in South Africa. On a recent visit, he was shocked to see a white friend swerving her car in the direction of an elderly black woman who was crossing the road, deliberately frightening her and then laughing it off.

Hollywood star Morgan Freeman, whose uncanny portrait of Mandela is one of the film's highlights, was a driving force behind the Invictus project. Freeman was in an ebullient mood this week as he promoted the film, giving a South African fist-in-the-air power salute as he posed for photos. He is staying in South Africa next week to do charity work and to help bring impoverished communities to free screenings of the film in Soweto, the sprawling black township near Johannesburg.

Freeman wants the movie to remind South Africans of the spirit of reconciliation in 1995.

"Yes, of course, it didn't solve all of the country's problems," Freeman told journalists. "But the moment did do something seminal, something extremely important: It showed you what was possible. I think one of the best things to expect from the film is that it will remind South Africans. …. People will say, 'Yes, that was such a magical time, and if we did it once, we can do it again, and will.'"

Eastwood and the producers chose to open the film simultaneously in South Africa and North America yesterday, rather than forcing audiences here to wait months as they normally must for Hollywood releases. It's a gesture of appreciation to the South Africans who helped make the film. The producers have organized red-carpet premieres in four South African cities, and they hope that Mandela - now a frail 91-year-old - might attend the Soweto premiere next Wednesday on the Day of Reconciliation, a national holiday.

The film arrives in South Africa as the country is preparing for another historic moment: the first soccer World Cup to be hosted by an African nation. South Africa's soccer team will be an underdog when the World Cup opens in Johannesburg next June - but so too was its rugby team in 1995. And just as black South Africans came to support a white-dominated sport in 1995, there are hopes that next year the country's whites will learn to love soccer, traditionally the black sport here.

In a country where sport is practically a religion, the 2010 World Cup could have as much political impact as rugby did 14 years ago. "I think we will see a rainbow nation uniting behind our team, and I think it's going to be another stepping stone for us as a country, bringing us together," says Patrick Mofokeng, a Zulu actor who plays one of Mandela's black bodyguards in the film.

Mofokeng had never watched a rugby game in his life before 1995. The first game he saw on television was the Springbok championship victory. He remembers cheering for the Springboks - and getting goosebumps when he heard the captain, Pienaar, giving credit to the entire nation for the astonishing win. "For that day, we forgot about our bad history, and we were just a united nation," Mofokeng says.

The heir to the Mandela throne, President Jacob Zuma, is a Zulu nationalist who was deeply distrusted by most whites when he gained power this year. Yet even Zuma has learned the lessons of Mandela and the 1995 rugby game. He has preached inclusiveness, given speeches in Afrikaans and reached out to whites. Almost as if anticipating a scene from Invictus , he made the ultimate symbolic gesture: He donned the jersey of the Bulls, a famed Afrikaner-dominated rugby team. "He consciously wants to recover the Mandela spirit," Carlin says.