Accuracy of film

Rating: 5/10 (25 January 2012)

How Accurate was the Film "Gandhi" as a Portrayal of his Early Life?
In the film "Gandhi" by David Attenborough, the story of Gandhi's life begins when he is around twenty, and whilst events shown from then are fairly accurate, Gandhi did have a colourful past before that which seems to have been omitted. In the book "Indian Summer: The Secret History of the end of an Empire." By Alex Von Tunzelmann, Gandhi's childhood and teens are described, highlighting the bad choices he made. These included: smoking, stealing from his family to fund this, almost committing suicide with his cousin and even visiting a brothel, though he didn't sleep with anyone there. After getting married at the age of thirteen, Gandhi also became obsessed with sex, having intercourse with his wife whilst pregnant, which is a sin against God. Strangely however, none of this seems to have been included in the film. It is literally completely skipped over and there is no mention of Gandhi's teens at all. These controversial issues being missed out suggests that Attenborough may have idolised Gandhi and so wanted to present him in a light that encouraged others to do the same. On the other hand, perhaps he thought that they might offend others who have faith in Gandhi, or they're not important to the story. Whatever the reason, it seriously damages the film's accuracy and creates a suspicion that the rest of the film will simply be without another mistakes Gandhi made. However this is not completely the case as we do see Gandhi grip his wife and shout at her. This is because she outright refuses to help clean their toilets. She call it the work of untouchables. Gandhi believed that everyone should do this as it was just as important a task as any. He quickly becomes furious, grabs her by the wrist and chucks her out, shouting. Followed by this is a quick realisation, regret and an apology from him. Whilst this seemingly squashes the notion that Attenborough is only showing Gandhi's good side, the book still presents him as much harsher. In the book, when he shouts at his wife, it is not because she is refusing to clean the toilets, but because she is crying as she is cleaning them. The outright refusal she gave in the film almost made it look as though Gandhi was justified in his reaction. Whilst in the book he looked irrational in his behaviour, as she was doing the task. This implies that perhaps Attenborough was trying to idolize Gandhi and that by showing a fault that wasn't too ad, the audience would be able to relate to him more. Therefore they would like him more, because everybody makes mistakes, and he apologised strait afterwards. Again though, this is Attenborough twisting the truth and again making the film inaccurate. In conclusion, the film "Gandhi" isn't a very accurate portrayal of the man's early life. The biggest mistakes of Gandhi's life are left out and this immediately creates a suspicion that the rest of the film will be just as inaccurate. Other mistakes are included, but tweaked to still make Gandhi seem the better person. This suggests that the purpose of the film is to make people idolize Gandhi rather than to provide a factual account of his life.