Noble Effort.

Rating: 7/10 (18 November 2009)

There is no question of Gandhi's wisdom or his bravery. He was a standout on both counts. That makes it a little difficult to make a movie about him because flawlessness isn't inherently interesting. He would have been an easier project if he'd kept an opium den or liked little girls. A little realistic ambiguity never hurt anyone. Look at "Lawrence of Arabia." As it is, we get what I presume is a roughly accurate picture of Gandhi's mature life, wrapped up as it was with the drive for India's independence. I don't suppose it's giving away too much of the ending to say that his life led to the death that such heroic figures so frequently suffer. Why is it that people of peace are always assassinated while scurrilous and dictatorial thugs seem to go on ruling forever?
Ben Kingsley is damned near perfect in the lead role. Not just because he LOOKED almost identical to the older Gandhi but because he captures the man's moods so well, humorous and dramatic both. The film is by necessity a hagiography. I mean, he's celebrated as a leader in India. There is Gandhi Day, a holiday. And he's recognized world wide as a man whose protests were, at his demand, non-violent. Christians ought to be sensitive to those kinds of values, considering that they were espoused by Christianity's founder.
There is, of course, conflict, first between the Indians and the British colonial system; then between the Hindus and Moslems, which led to the separation of India into what is now three countries -- Pakistan, India, and Bengladesh. There was nothing Gandhi could do to put a stop to the violence, and the enmity between Pakistan and India lingers to this day.
In the film, the Moslems seem to come off worse. Their leader, Jinnah, continues throughout to wear European dress, sometimes a monocle. He seems always to scowl and is dilatory during the independence movement.
There are several cameos by well-known actors -- John Gielgud, John Mills, Trevor Howard -- and small but prominent roles for Martin Sheen as the kind of newsman who discovered T. E. Lawrence and for Candice Bergen as the kind of photographer who made Gandhi's a familiar visage in the Western world.
The movie is somehow neither gripping nor "epic" despite the potential of the material. I really DO wish we'd seen some of Gandhi's weaknesses. He must have had them. After all, he was just human. As it is, we get a picture of the kind of man who once had an awkward moment just to see what it felt like.
Fortunately, the movie gives adequate coverage to the Moslem/Hindu conflict. But structurally it's a little anti-climactic. The proper fictional ending would have the hero assassinated just as the battle for independence was won, like Abraham Lincoln. But I don't mind the anti-climax. The reason is that anti-climactic events are often, as here, just as instructive as the events that led to the climax in the first place.
It's not just the script that's weak. The director, Richard Attenborough, has clearly put a lot of effort into the film but he's shot it as if it were a TV movies. One close up follows another, not because they are dramatically called for but because Attenborough chose to use this conventional technique. No attention is paid to features of the natural landscape either. India looks like South Africa looked, although, with a few exceptional shots, we don't feel much impact from either location. The movie marches along, a little predictably, and lacks poetry.
But the questions it raises have resonance. Is it possible for people to live in peace despite their differences in ethnicity or religion? Or must tribal allegiances continue to lead to more blood historically than political differences ever have, as the priest/sociologist/novelist Andrew Greeley has argued? Gandhi believed that peace could be achieved without violence, but moves on the international chess board constantly suggest he was mistaken.