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Film Story
On 11 February 1990,Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison after having spent 27years in jail. Four years later, Mandela is elected the first black Presidentof South Africa. His presidency faces enormous challenges in the post-Apartheidera, including rampant poverty and crime, and Mandela is particularly concernedabout racial divisions between black and white South Africans, which could leadto violence. The ill will which both groups hold towards each other is seeneven in his own security detail where relations between the established whiteofficers, who had guarded Mandela’s predecessors, and the black ANC additionsto the security detail, are frosty and marked by mutual distrust.
While attending a gamebetween the Springboks, the country’s rugby union team, and England, Mandelarecognizes that the black people in the stadium are cheering for England, asthe mostly-white Springboks represent prejudice and apartheid in their minds;he remarks that he did the same while imprisoned on Robben Island. Knowing thatSouth Africa is set to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup in one year’s time,Mandela persuades a meeting of the newly black-dominated South African SportsCommittee to support the Springboks. He then meets with the captain of theSpringboks rugby team, François Pienaar, and implies that a Springboks victoryin the World Cup will unite and inspire the nation. Mandela also shares withFrançois a British poem, “Invictus”, that had inspired him during his time inprison.
François and histeammates train. Many South Africans, both black and white, doubt that rugbywill unite a nation torn apart by nearly 50 years of racial tensions, as formany black people, especially the radicals, the Springboks symbolize whitesupremacy. Both Mandela and Pienaar, however, stand firmly behind their theorythat the game can successfully unite the South African country.
Things begin to changeas the players interact with the fans and begin a friendship with them. Duringthe opening games, support for the Springboks begins to grow among the blackpopulation. By the second game, the whole country comes together to support theSpringboks and Mandela’s efforts. Mandela’s security team also grows closer asthe various officers come to respect their comrades’ professionalism anddedication.
As Mandela watches, theSpringboks defeat one of their archrivals - Australia, the defending championsand known as the Wallabies - in their opening match. They then continue to defyall expectations and, as Mandela conducts trade negotiations with Japan, defeatFrance in heavy rain in Durban to advance to the final against their otherarch-rival: New Zealand, known as the All Blacks. New Zealand and South Africawere universally regarded as the two greatest rugby nations, with theSpringboks being the only side to have a winning record against the All Blacksup to this point. The first Test series between the two countries in 1921 wasthe beginning of an intense rivalry, with emotions running high whenever thetwo nations met on the rugby field.
Before the game, theSpringbok team visits Robben Island, where Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27years in jail. There Pienaar is inspired by Mandela’s will and his idea ofself-mastery in Invictus. François mentions his amazement that Mandela “couldspend thirty years in a tiny cell, and come out ready to forgive the people whoput him there”.
Supported by a largehome crowd of all races at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, Pienaarmotivates his teammates for the final. Mandela’s security detail receives ascare when, just before the match, a South African Airways Boeing 747 jetlinerflies in low over the stadium. It is not an assassination attempt though, but ademonstration of patriotism, with the message “Good Luck, Bokke” — theSpringboks’ Afrikaans nickname — painted on the undersides of the plane’swings. Mandela also famously arrives onto the field before the match wearing aSpringbok cap and a long-sleeved replica of Pienaar’s No.6 shirt.
The Springboks completetheir run by beating the All Blacks 15-12 in extra time thanks to a drop goalfrom fly-half Joel Stransky. Mandela and Pienaar meet on the field together tocelebrate the improbable and unexpected victory, and Mandela hands Pienaar the WilliamWebb Ellis Cup, signaling that the Springboks are indeed rugby union’s worldchampions. Mandela’s car then drives away in the traffic-jammed streets leavingthe stadium. As Mandela watches the South Africans celebrating together fromthe car, his voice is heard reciting Invictus again.
Invictus
byWilliam Earnest Henley
Outof the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
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