Mandela in Film and History

1. In general, what did you like and dislike about the film?

Personally, I liked the movie "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" because it was well made, I was especially impressed by the good quality and diversity of the shots. On a less technical and more focused on the content note, I think the emotions of the characters were very well represented by the actors, the scenes where all the people were summoned to watch Nelson Mandela speak and at the end they all chanted and marched together were very great and exciting; inspiring even.

What I disliked about the movie is, as stated on the article The Two Mandelas, that it's clear that it was made following the real life events experienced by Nelson Mandela, but never touching topics that could be controversial among American or western audiences in general, like the importance of The Communist Party of South Africa in the fight to end the apartheid or the radicalism of the ANC that the movie tries to conceal.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie a lot and I think it was interesting to know about who Nelson Mandela really was, historical myth and Nobel Prize award aside.

2. In your own words, how would you compare the "various Mandelas;" the ones from the article and the one from the film?

As I said before, all my previous knowledge of Nelson Mandela revolved around his fight to end the apartheid, his time spent in jail, his election as president of South Africa and lastly his Nobel Peace Prize award. Because of that, I was very shocked to see the kind of man he was to his first wife and family, as well as his personal conflicts presented throughout the movie. The article "The two Mandelas" makes a distinction between South Africa's peaceful hero and revolutionary ANC member Nelson Mandela, which I think is a very important thing to do since the fight to end discrimination isn't over yet, and to finally eradicate that practice South Africa must maintain Mandela's legacy and continue fighting instead of standing still because of it. I believe that while being proud of his fight and achievements, it's always necessary to be critic of public figures and never over glorify them, which is something the movie partially did, but wasn’t completely achieved.

3. What was the role that Winnie Mandela played in the film? Think about the contrast between her and the other ANC members.

The role Winnie Mandela had in the movie was major, since it shows how she had to continue the fight against the institutional South African apartheid during the many years her husband spent imprisoned. We can see in the film how she gradually becomes more radical and violent because of the constant harassment and torture from the government, spending months in prison and being forced to leave her very young daughters alone for long periods of time. Because of that radicalization, her perspective of the way the people should challenge the government completely separated from the non-violent fight the ANC members, leaded by Nelson Mandela, preached about.

I think her character in this film was very relevant considering today's context and women's struggle to receive their basic rights all around the world. Seeing Winnie Mandela as a strong independent woman who fought for herself, her daughters and her people fearlessly was amazing.

4. How do you compare the role of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress in the struggle against the apartheid and in the post-apartheid South Africa to the Concertación and the ir role in the struggle against Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and in post-dictatorial Chile?

While the apartheid in South Africa consisted in discriminating and violating people's rights based on their race or skin color and Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile tortured and killed citizens because of their political views, it's clear that both were violent periods of each country's history where the governments used institutional repressive methods (unfair imprisonment, torture and murder) to silence their people. The struggles that the ANC and chilean Concertación faced against the apartheid and dictatorship respectively were also similar, since in both cases the people were divided between those who believed in a non-violent legal fight and those who militarized and trained to challenge the institutions with weapons the same way they were being threatened.

The most important similarity between the two in my opinion is, as stated in the article The Two Mandelas, that "much of what constituted apartheid still exists", meaning that even though the legal part of it is over, heavy discrimination still continues and the people who rule now aren't making any change to end it. In the case of Chile, once the dictatorship ended, the laws remained the same and most ex-military members who terrorized their own people died peacefully without paying what was due. I believe justice hasn't been made in either case, and that's a major issue that must be attended.