The life of Mam’ Winnie is filled with triumph, but disgrace too. Rhodé Marshall looks at how French director Pascale Lamche tells her story.
Winnie
Available on Showmax
3/5
It was always going to be a tall order for French director Pascale Lamche to pull off her sobering tale of one of South Africa’s greatest and most courageous womxn, in her 2017 documentary, Winnie, which is now available on Showmax. It deals with the complexities of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s life, which have at times led to the vilification of the freedom fighter who always held her fist up high when others were too scared to.
The life of Mam’ Winnie is filled with triumph, but disgrace too. Her story is fascinating. Did Lamche do it justice? Yes and no. Lamche only had access to Mam’ Winnie four times over a period of two years, and this might have limited her from reflecting more broadly on Madikizela-Mandela’s life. I was disappointed not to hear her thoughts on South Africa’s new struggles and leadership crisis.
Her tale is told in chronological order, starting with her June 1958 marriage to the man who would become South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela, and picks up on her activism during his incarceration. Her early life and the role of her upbringing was touched on too hastily by Lamche.
I was fascinated when Mam’ Winnie said that her dad’s tales of land being stolen “made Winnie”, and this is something that would have been worth exploring.
South African audiences will grasp the stories that are patched together by Lamche, while international audiences won’t be able to keep up and will still be left confused about the subject by the film’s end. The archive images and footage, combined with new footage of the country could have been juxtaposed more profoundly. The documentary is fascinating but it won’t give you any new insight into who Mam’ Winnie truly wanted us to remember her as.