The Sunday News
I AM not a serious fan of British born actor Idris Elba, but his choice of roles is very impressive and cannot be ignored. He is a talented actor with a good eye for good roles and because of that his star continues to shine. Idris Elba is certainly not a one character actor. He changes roles and characters so convincingly one cannot ignore him and his continued rise as a film star. I have been totally impressed by his towering performances in the films such as Daddy’s Little Girls, Sometime in April, Mandela; Long Walk to Freedom and recently Beasts of Nation.
As an actor Idris Elba takes his roles very seriously, sometimes trying the impossible. In Mandela; Long Walk to Freedom he stretched himself, even trying a Xhosa accent. Even though some sectors, especially in South Africa, were not impressed with his Xhosa accent, the important part is the actor made an effort in trying to portray Nelson Mandela the way he understood the once great man. The bitter truth is that even if Idris Elba’s Xhosa accent had been perfect some people would still have voiced their displeasure.
Anyway some of us who have seen him more than once on the big screen loved his performance as Mandela. And some critics had this to say about this particular performance; “from the first moment he speaks, sounding uncannily like the real Mandela, the veil of illusion slips away and we’re back with the crusading lawyer as he battles South Africa’s apartheid regime”.
While his Mandela performance sets him apart from many actors I believe in Beasts of Nation, playing a rebel soldier who recruits and trains children soldiers Elba outdid himself.
In this film he delivers perhaps his finest performance – I’m keeping my fingers crossed this role will get him an Oscar nomination for 2016. And if he doesn’t get a nomination it will be perhaps because the Oscars have always been biased towards race.
Beasts of Nation is about a civil war in Nigeria. It is about child soldiers and Elba’s character, a rebel soldier, is tasked with building a battalion of children soldiers. He recruits and trains them, turning them into ruthless killing machines. Some scenes in the movie are gut wrenching, especially when the young soldiers go on a killing and raping spree. The beauty and power in Idris Elba’s character is that you never see him committing violence but using mind games to poison the children into believing they are invincible and are doing the right thing. With his powerful mind games he turns the innocent into killing machines – the tragedy that unfolds before one’s eyes as the film races towards its climax is that the children quickly lose their innocence and in the violence of the war actually lose themselves.
Hollywood politics is strange and sometimes confusing. I have seen many Nigerian stories making it to the big screen and being produced by Hollywood film companies. The same with South Africa. One sadly gets the picture that Hollywood must think Africa is basically Nigeria and South Africa or the two countries are just aggressive enough to get what they want – in this case Hollywood attention. Having watched Beasts of Nation and enjoyed it one is left asking where are other African stories? Who is telling them and where are they being told? We need more African stories on the big stage.
In other news Jah Prayzah, currently Zimbabwe’s man of the moment on the music scene, held a show in Bulawayo on the same night as the city was hosting South African duo Black Motion. I didn’t attend the shows but am reliably told that both shows were packed to the rafters. So who said Bulawayo cannot host more than one show in one night?
I guess the success of the two shows proves many critics wrong about Bulawayo being too small to host more than one big show per night. Yes. Bulawayo is big enough to accommodate more than one event per night. So let have more events and have Bulawayo people supporting in their numbers.
