Workmanlike biography of India's great religious leader

Rating: 6/10 (26 March 2008)

I'm relatively unfamiliar with the history of Mahatma Gandhi's lifelong struggle to liberate India from the yoke of British colonialism and have since learned that this biopic plays somewhat fast and loose with the historical events and characters (particularly Nehru and Jinnah) along the way. That said, it's still an ambitious and admirable piece of film-making by Richard Attenborough even if not, in my opinion ultimately quite deserving of all the accolades it received at the time of its release. The cinematography is of the highest standard (eat your hearts out Merchant Ivory), the crowd scenes superbly handled and of course centring it all is Ben Kingsley's performance as the beating heart of the movie, moving the events forward as he matures from an idealistic young lawyer first learning to turn the other cheek of passive protest in turn of the century apartheid South Africa to later take on the stubborn remnants of the fading British Empire in his homeland to achieve his desired aim of independence just after the second world war. Perhaps a weakness of the film is that we only ever seem to get Gandhi's viewpoint of things, so that any contrary view to his is somehow demeaned and found wanting. This can't be right when one thinks of the conviction politics at play here particularly the religious differences which caused the India / Pakistan divide. There's also a possibly unavoidable tendency to sanctify Gandhi as he delivers homily, after edict, after platitude - he surely can't have been right all the time...and there's a bit of underpowered dynamism at key parts of the narrative. There also seems to me to be a little too much croney-ism in some of the casting although it was certainly a brave move to cast the little known Kingsley in the lead part. You could argue that the director's low-key approach better serves its serious purpose rather than a more Hollywood-type hyperbolic exaggeration but remembering that this is a movie entertainment and not a documentary, I still felt the malaise. The sheer length of the piece (even with intermission) again mitigates against the drama although again director Attenborough, obviously in thrall to his subject, possibly didn't want to short change Gandhi with just a two hour potted biography. All through this review in fact I'm apologising for the director, perhaps subconsciously venerating the subject matter too much myself. Gandhi's place in history however is secure and Attenborough's noble but slightly stolid film does nothing to detract from that. Whether the life of a religious leader or politician lends itself to great movie art is however debatable and "Gandhi" for me doesn't quite deliver enough as a film to convince me one way or the other.