Great movie

Rating: 8/10 (11 November 2017)

''There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail.'' - Mohandas Gandhi This quote from the movie 'Gandhi', which was published in 1982, and produced and directed by Richard Attenborough, who also worked on various different movie genres and didn't only concentrate on historical movies or biographies, shows Gandhis' view of riots and violence in India. The film tells the story of Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian citizen fighting for equality and independence. Many people showed great interest in his life, which led to 8 Oscar-Acadamy-Awards and great success. The movie starts with a scene, in which Gandhi is assassinated and continues with his funeral in 1948. Then, there is a time leap to 1893, where Gandhi gets thrown off of a train in South Africa, because he isn't white. Because of that and other aspects of discrimination, he starts his first protest, in which he already follows his concept of satyagraha, a peaceful way of protest. The movie goes on and more and more people follow him and participate in his protests, making them more powerful. After a while, almost every Indian knows, who Mohandas Gandhi is, making his hunger fast a powerful weapon against war and riots. The film shows his influence on the people and on India generally and how he affected India's history and possibly prevented the death of many people. The actor, which plays Gandhi, Ben Kingsley, is very convincing. He transfers Gandhi's calmness and wiseness, but also his word power and influence on other Indians. It is shown that Gandhi would have willingly died at a protest or at a hunger strike, if it had helped to create peace in India. He thought of India as a union between Muslims, Hindus and all other religious groups, which was also why he was against partitioning India. His view on the problem seemed to be the right view, as mass violence and riots were only a few effects of Partition. The movie, which was filmed in India, preserves a great insight into the true life of an Indian at that time. It shows the discrimination, starting in the second scene, in which Gandhi is thrown off of the train, because he refused to leave the first class, which was only for white people. In another scene it is shown that Indians weren't allowed to walk on the side walk, since again, only white people were allowed to walk on there. In almost every scene it gets clear that the British were clearly privileged and the Indians were less worth as much than the British. Altogether, I would recommend watching the movie, since it isn't only historically informative but also allows an inside look into the life of Indians at the time of Partition. It shows that almost every Indian was invested into the war and the riots and that there was barely a way to avoid it. In my opinion, it also illustrates the big impact of Mohandas Gandhi and that the war wouldn't have passed as peaceful as it did with him.