Historical figures are always hard to represent, both on the page and the screen - villains or heroes, we see them through the prism of news reports, friends, family, and the events which they shaped by actions only they could take the blame or credit for. But unlike Ghandi or Martin Luthur King, men who's anger translated into peaceful protest, Nelson Mandela took a different path. Today many people see Mandela in almost saint-like terms, but his drive to take up arms against the Apartheid South African government after the Sharperville Massacre of 1960 makes his initial attitude very different from men who are often seen in similar light.

Madiba: The Life and Times of Nelson Mandela is a solid if rather glowing piece of journalism on the high and low points of Mandela's life so far, because of course the man is still very much alive; he is a continued symbol of healing within South Africa and the wider world.

Reference material on Mandela, or Madiba as he was dubbed by his clan members, is plentiful on the web and perhaps the pure facts of this documentary are not particularly startling, but what is does so well in it running time is show how belief in one's cause and an ability to truly represent the happiness of a people rather than any kind of personal agenda can lead to social change.

It may seem an unlikely connection but Christopher Nolan's 2008 Hollywood hit The Dark Knight was partially a meditation on what qualities a leader should embody and what actions he or she should perform in the struggle against the forces of darkness. Nolan's film ended with the conclusion that it was better to lie about a man's character and keep the integrity of a symbolic good than to tell the truth. That in any kind of struggle where human life is at stake, good men do dark things things so we don't have to. Not knowing kept hope alive.

Mandela has admitted that in his leadership and advising of the ANC throughout his 27 year imprisonment, terrible things were done that violated human rights. Madiba shows Mandela transforming from a man who could easily be classed a 'terrorist' into a figure far closer to King and Ghandi as he adapted to the realities of civil unrest and military action on both sides of the Apartheid razor-wire fence. But that doesn't undo his past.

What this film doesn't dare ask is a question we will never know the answer to which is this: Had Nelson Mandela never been imprisoned, could he have contained his political anger long enough to have made a difference before being killed in some military action? Was imprisonment the saving of his life, his soul, and of the country he so dearly loves?