Invictus—A single sentence description of this film would be: This is the story about the South African National Rugby Team winning the World Rugby Championship in 1995. While that description is true, it is very far from the whole story. Like many Americans, I followed the news events in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s as the apartheid regime of white South Africans desperately sought to continue to suppress the nation’s black majority and retain power. People around the world were asked to boycott corporations that did business in South Africa. South Africa’s athletic teams were persona non gratis at international competitions. Eventually the pressure from inside and outside South Africa became too great to resist. The nation negotiated a transition from white rule to a government led by blacks. Nelson Mandela—the long imprisoned hero of the African National Congress—became South Africa’s first black president. For most people outside of South Africa, this was the happy end of the story. In Clint Eastwood’s film based on John Carlin’s book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, it is the beginning of the story. How do you bind together a nation from two groups of people who have viewed each other with suspicion, hostility, and hatred for decades—perhaps centuries? This challenge is enormous, and this film shows the unique skill and wisdom of the man having to make the choices for how South Africa would move forward. Morgan Freeman delivers a fabulous performance as Mandela and deservingly has garnered an Oscar nomination. Matt Damon is equally good in the more restrained role as the beleaguered captain of the white-dominated national team Springboks that have long been hated by South Africa’s blacks. As a sports movie the film breaks no new ground for the genre and (American) filmgoers are likely to know little more about the sport of rugby at the center of the film than they knew before, but the critical context and the performances elevate this film greatly. The film owes its title to an 1875 poem by William Ernest Henley that gave comfort and strength to Mandela during his long imprisonment. It ends with these two immortal lines:

“I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”

This message will never go out of fashion.  

Broken Embraces—Pedro Almódovar’s latest postcard from Spain is a love note to the incestuous film business and a testament to film salvation through better editing. Tired of hearing about endless director’s cuts and revised versions? Forget about that coming to an end anytime soon! Different choices, different scenes, different cuts, and—voilà!—a cinematic canine is transformed into a fabulous film. That part of the film is fairly straightforward, but getting to it is pretty complicated, and one is introduced to the incestuous nature of the film business. Our main character (Lluis Homar) is a one-time successful director named Mateo Blanco who, since losing his eyesight fourteen years earlier, has carved a new identity using his nom de plume Harry Caine. Soon we hear about the death of shady industrial Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez) and then flash back to his pursuit of the beautiful Lena (Penélope Cruz), who works in his office. Lena makes an unspoken Faustian bargain with Martel in which she offers her “love” in exchange for his help in taking care of the health care needs of her father, who is seriously ill with cancer. Chafing against Martel’s gilded cage, Lena wishes to pursue her long-time dream of becoming an actress, and this eventually leads to her meeting Mateo. He ends up casting Lena as the star of his film, and Martel puts up the cash to get it made. This pragmatic, but unholy, alliance leads to a horrific tragedy and a dreadful film. Almódovar shows how personal and professional relationships can become blurred in the film business and lead to explosive consequences. The flip side of this plays out in Harry’s contemporary relationship with his long-time collaborator Judit (Blanca Portillo) and her son Diego (Tamar Novas). This is an engaging film that offers an inside and intriguing perspective on filmmaking.       

The Young Victoria—This is a historical pageant about royal intrigue. However instead of the sixteenth century of King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I, we are treated to the swirl of plots and plans around a young English monarch whose name became synonymous with the nineteenth century. It could seem much the same except the film is bereft of the roiling passions of warring Protestants and Catholics and the executioner’s axe. I sometimes use the term “pageant” in a pejorative way to denote that a film is full of spectacle but mostly superficial as far as shedding light on the deeper motives and personalities of its characters. However, as pageants go, this one is pretty good. Emily Blunt does invest her cloistered teenaged Victoria with a steely resolve that will mostly serve her well during her long reign. Jim Broadbent is memorable as Victoria’s dying uncle King William hoping to hang onto life long enough to avoid having Victoria’s ambitious mother, the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson), and her unscrupulous adviser Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong) assume regent authority for the young princess. Other highlights include the charming Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany) and the stiff, yet unwaveringly, devoted Prince Albert (Rupert Friend), who will become the love of her life. While it is always dubious to view films as history, the film does provide a window into an era that the audience likely doesn’t know much about, and if that encourages just a handful to become excited and study this history, then it has done something very good indeed.