Taking a glimpse behind the curtain of international diplomacy is a fascinating yet distinctly worrying experience. Plot for Peace, directed by Carlos Agulló and Mandy Jacobson, draws the veil on one particular political saga in a way that both hails those involved for their good work but also emphasises the fact that some of the most important decisions of political history have been based on petty tit for tat and the interests of outside parties.
Plot for Peace is based around the end of the Apartheid regime and release of Nelson Mandela from incarceration in South Africa. The outside influence in this case is Algerian born business man Jean-Yves Ollivier. You probably haven’t heard of him. He is not the kind of man to make speeches or strive for the limelight, yet as the film documents, he was instrumental in the events leading to the downfall of Apartheid. Having lived through Civil War and a brief imprisonment in his teenage years, Ollivier grew up to be a man who detested inequality. As he became a successful business man on the African continent, he decided to use his connections and his position as a neutral outsider to step into the political maelstrom surrounding South Africa. Using a combination of original footage and new interviews, the film builds a true-life political thriller narrated by Ollivier himself.
The portrait of Ollivier built by Agullo and Jacobson is intriguing. On the surface of it, Ollivier (the only man to have been decorated by both the Apartheid and Mandela regimes) is practically a saint. The leaders of African nations interviewed as part of the film are unequivocal in their praise for the man. Perhaps it’s cynical of me to suggest but as events became more and more politically complex, not to mention dangerous, I couldn’t help but feel that the man’s motives were never fully explored and dissenting voices were noticeable by their absence. Ollivier is afterall, a businessman – were his motives really as pure as they seemed?
Despite these cynical suspicions, Plot for Peace is still a riveting watch. The documentary makers have crafted a genuinely exciting thriller from a story that is far from well-known. An intriguing look not only into a particular moment in history but into the world of international diplomacy as a whole.