“Well-crafted, emotionally resonant and deeply moving.”

Over his lifetime, Nelson Mandela accumulated many names, ranging from tribal designations to informal nicknames to reverent titles that are still used by his admirers. It makes sense that Antoine Fuqua would use this in the opening moments of Troublemaker, a powerful documentary that centres entirely on Mandela, exploring his life, from his upbringing in the Eastern Cape and his early legal and political career, to his many years spent imprisoned, and finally to his groundbreaking presidency, which laid the foundation for the modern South Africa. The discussion that starts the film is based around his birth name, Rolihlahla, which the interviewer states officially means “pulling the branches of a tree”, but has gone on to have an additional meaning: “troublemaker”, which is perhaps the perfect way to describe Mandela’s entire purpose in life, stirring trouble and unsettling the status quo. For those who are not familiar with the various nuances of his political career, and instead just view him as the sage leader who helped end Apartheid in South Africa, such a suggestion would be almost insulting. Yet, Mandela himself embraced the idea, and Fuqua takes this as the foundation for a challenging and daring biographical account of the esteemed leader’s journey. Blending personal origin story with political commentary, the film explores Mandela’s life, showing how his identity was shaped by history, language and resistance, using his own words, as well as the words of those closest to him, to tell his story. This all ultimately comes together in the director’s intentions to strip away monumentality and instead return the story of Mandela to something more intrinsically human, less an abstract symbol of the resistance and more a man forged by circumstance and his own indomitable courage.

The inherent challenge that comes with making a film about someone as influential and iconic as Mandela is that it is impossible to condense everything into a single work, especially one that aims to explore nearly a century of life. Fuqua’s approach is to portray him as a man defined by multiple fragments, depending on the era being discussed – at times, he is shown as a sharp, cunning strategist who could be ruthless when required, or as a reflective, composed elder statesman who has formed his own unique philosophy that he uses to guide his personal choices. The purpose of this is not only to reveal the various facets of Mandela’s life and personality (and in the process dismiss the notion that he was always the calm, sage presence that is often shown in popular culture, but was instead the most fervent and daring of revolutionaries at times), but also to underline the tension between action and memory. Mandela died in 2013, and these interviews were conducted many years prior. Yet, we still find that hindsight has reshaped the moral weight of his past decisions – he doesn’t feel any remorse for his choices, but his reflections do show someone aware of the intricacies of his journey, and how he was not only driven to fight for his own freedom and that of his peers in Apartheid-era South Africa, but also the future generations, whose entire lives would be defined by the actions taken by these fearless freedom fighters. It is undeniable that Mandela was a man built on ironclad principles and whose actions were always for the greater cause, but rather than simply consolidating his image as a saintly figure, Fuqua presents him as occupying multiple roles: a thinker, a tactician and a revolutionary, all of which extended both to his professional pursuits as one of the many figureheads of the movement to abolish Apartheid, and to his personal life, as a man who wanted to leave a better world for his descendants.

Troublemaker blends archival footage (ranging from photographs to newsreels) with new interviews filmed specifically for this film, and structures it around a long-form interview that he conducted with Richard Stengel in the early 1990s (in the period between his release from prison and his election as President of South Africa), which has regularly been called “The Mandela Tapes”, as definitive an account of his life as his memoir, Long Walk to Freedom, an essential piece of biographical writing. It carefully subverts the traditional cradle-to-grave structure that we have come to expect from these biographical documentaries, following a clear chronology but also shifting the style and approach to prevent monotony. Most of the film consists of audio taken from the interview with Mandela, interpreted in a series of gorgeous animations by Thabang Lehobye, and interspersed with a range of additional materials that supplement, and occasionally even guide, the ideas being presented through the discussion. This gives the film a distinct rhythm, blending testimony and imagery (as well as some carefully curated music choices – if Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” didn’t tug at the heartstrings before, its use in this film absolutely will), to create a film that may be largely conventional in form, but feels far more alive and dynamic through its energetic and reverent approach that takes the viewer through a decades-spanning odyssey into Mandela’s life and career. Some moments register as joyful and enthralling, others deeply unsettling in how they depict the reality faced by the black community under Apartheid – the footage showing the protests and ensuing violence is beyond harrowing – and we can respect Fuqua’s insistence on avoiding directly showing the brutality of Apartheid. The results lead to a film that is alive with a unique energy, being thrilling, confrontational, and impossible to ignore.

By the time we reach the end of Troublemaker, we’ve experienced a truly extraordinary piece of storytelling. For those who are aware of Mandela’s life, either through growing up in South Africa or simply through reading his memoirs, the film doesn’t offer any additional information that we may not have known, outside of some very intriguing observations that were contained in these audio interviews. However, we come to realise that Mandela is only one part of what this film aims to explore – Fuqua was interested in broadening the lens beyond only Mandela and his well-known compatriots like O.R. Tambo and Walter Sisulu, whose names remain etched on every part of South African culture, and instead ushers in the quiet but meaningful acknowledgment of the countless freedom fighters who fought (and often died) in complete obscurity, individual voices in a choir that brought extraordinary change. These voices still reverberate through the present-day political and social realities of South Africa, and Troublemaker is as much a homage to them as it is an exploration of Mandela’s legacy. Not another fawning tribute to a global icon, but instead an intricately woven psychological portrait in which Mandela’s story is mostly told in his own words, the film acts as a chronicle of a revolution, rather than the story of a single heroic journey. This raises questions about what truly inspires and sustains a movement, beyond mere ideological ambition. Well-crafted, emotionally resonant and deeply moving, Troublemaker is a celebration of not only an iconic leader but also the many people who were just as involved in his journey towards becoming one of the 20^th century’s most inspiring leaders and cultural icons.