I don’t do movie reviews. Apart from anything else, I am horribly under-qualified never having seen 90% of the movies that are considered classics. But I feel the need to write something about a particular movie I have just seen, not from the perspective of critically assessing the quality or performances but just because it’s a movie that tells a story that means a lot to me.

Growing up in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s was complicated. To begin with, everything kept changing and there was a lot of uncertainty. I was lucky to be in a fairly safe, secure situation, rather than, say, a township, so that most things didn’t reach my fairly protected childhood world. I remember some things. I remember that we couldn’t travel to play sports matches against schools in other towns because school-buses were being targeted so they weren’t supposed to go anywhere without a police escort. I remember doing bomb-drills alongside fire drills in primary school. I remember how, in the weeks leading up to the 1994 elections, several shops, in the town where I lived, that had always had huge glass windows suddenly put up burglar bars across their windows. I remember how the families of friends were stockpiling water and canned goods in anticipation of a civil war. On the day of the elections, I was at school (all of 14). It was a public holiday and we had an extra practice for a musical I was involved in. But my parents went off and voted in the first free and democratic election my country had ever seen.

I remember much more clearly 1995. I didn’t grow up in a rugby family and had never had all that much to do with the game, but you couldn’t live in the Eastern Cape without learning something about it. And in 1995, we were all learning everything we could. On the day of the final, I was the only one in my family who sat glued to the TV screen. I remember that my Mom had gone out for a walk and she said the streets were deserted and all they heard was shouts of joy and agony from the houses they passed as the game was watched by millions of South Africans. After the match, my parents went out to the shops and drove through crowds of people shouting and dancing in the streets and banging on the cars. Just a year earlier, crowds of people dancing and shouting in the streets would have been enough to terrify any South African. But on this day it was okay. On this day, the country celebrated as one because we had done it – we had defied all expectations and won the Rugby World Cup.

I was a little sceptical when I heard they were making a movie about it. I was chatting to a friend a few weeks ago – one of the few foreigners I know here who actually understands rugby – and I mentioned that I was worried about what they would do with it. As much as it was a movie-type moment for all of us, there is so much scope for error and horribly butchering the reality when people try to use that moment to make a Hollywood movie, there is a good chance that they’ll get it wrong.

Tonight I finally got around to watching Invictus. Just hearing Shosholoza at the very beginning and seeing the scenery that is so real and so much home to me, I was already in tears. And knowing what was coming. Since 1995, I’ve become a fairly avid rugby fan and watch my teams as often as I can – which isn’t nearly often enough being in a country that doesn’t play rugby. Since then, of course, I have also become actively interested in politics and finally understood the real horror of apartheid, so in some ways, watching the movie now, and reliving the moments, was even more moving than the first time around. I really enjoyed Freeman’s portrayal of Madiba. I have no idea how true to life some of the events were but he captured the humanity and humility which so endear South Africa’s great hero to so many. I loved Matt Damon’s portrayal of Francois Pienaar, too. I’m always a little uneasy when I hear that a foreigner is going to try and play a South African, but he managed it very well, even getting the accent mostly right, and I felt like he actually understood some of what it’s like and started to understand the rugby. I don’t mean understand the game – which many other countries do – but understand the role it plays in the identity and culture of so many in my country.

Ultimately, the greatest challenge in this movie was always going to be to find a way to capture the emotions – from the very real and still present racial tensions to the moments of reconciliation and overcoming history. I loved the way the movie portrayed the ongoing tension using the body-guards. And I loved how Eastwood didn’t shy away from depicting the tensions and the difficulties, and also the shared joy and growing friendship, using the bodyguards. Not being a huge movie fan, I don’t know directors or most actors very well but I was impressed with Gran Torino and enjoyed how Eastwood used the same kind of realism here. There was an authenticity which is often hard to create in Hollywood-style movies. It felt normal – or at least, normal for South Africa. I could see in the portrayal all the moments of tension, all the (often unfounded) fears and the joys all South Africans know so well. Because no-one is immune to history and the reality of a country trying to come to terms with a miraculous transition to democracy and all the fears and issues that go with it.

I find it difficult to explain to foreigners exactly what I feel about my country. There are many countries were patriotism is an important value. I always struggle to explain why I feel like what I’m feeling is different. It’s not just that I love my country. I do love my country. But not in the sense that I want to go out and fight for it. I love what my country stands for – the fight not for land or for control but for freedom. I love that South Africa is still going strong, that whatever my problems with the current leadership of the ANC, we have made democracy work. And I love how we got there. I don’t understand South Africans who dismiss our past and want nothing to do with making the country better.

My reaction to this movie wasn’t all about that history. Watching it so far from home, the scenery alone was enough to make me long to return. The images of home. The ordinariness of the dry grass and the dusty townships and the beauty of table mountain. Even the Elwierda bus made me miss it. And the people. Ordinary South Africans doing what ordinary South African do every day. Ordinary people celebrating an extraordinary country.

And then the final. After the build-up of the movie and the energy and the action, the moment was electric. I felt again the thrill and the anxiety. My heart was in my throat. I knew how it would end – I remember the moment – but I still felt the same heart-thumping anticipation. I watched the play, my nails dug into the palms of my hands, on tenter-hooks all over again. And then the final whistle and that moment, the moment that means so much to so many of, when Pienaar raised the Webb Ellis Trophy, the moment of joy and glory when we showed the world (again) that we could overcome expectations. That moment that is a symbol of so much to so many.

It’s strange to have a movie capture something so personal and so real. Not everything was 100% accurate but it was close enough to evoke all the emotions of 1995. Each song, each moment, each image of the South African landscape and the springbok jersey was a reminder of how amazing my country is and how much I love it and look forward to being home and sharing my days with people who share the history and the culture and the love of a game that brought us all together.