This year, we’ve already had Catch a Fire, Phillip Noyce’s rather dreary apartheid drama, but don’t let that or the involvement of the reliably middlebrow August (The House Of The Spirits Smilla’s Feeling For Snow) deter you from seeing Goodbye Bafana. Based on the book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend, a memoir by former prison guard James Gregory, the film charts the unlikely friendship between Robben Island’s most famous inmate and the official who censored his letters.
Dennis Haysbert (24, Far From Heaven) conveys a rare calm as the former ANC leader. Joseph Fiennes has never been better. As Gregory, his slow conversion from a dogmatic agent of the state to a weary reformer is handled with terrific subtlety.
Can you feel a ‘but’ coming? There is, unhappily, a big problem with the source material rather than the film itself. According to the late Anthony Sampson, Mandela’s official biographer and close friend, the entire story is made up. Gregory, Sampson alleged, rarely spoke to Mandela (who considered suing Gregory when the book came out). He did, however, have access to all his communication, allowing him to put together a plausible fiction.
You can’t help but have mixed feelings about a film based on this material. It’s moving. It’s dramatic. It’s a pack of lies. Oh well, aren’t they all?