Actor Richard Attenborough (The Great Escape, The Sand Pebbles, Brannigan) tried his hand behind the scenes as director a few times. In my opinion he was a better actor than a director, but one of his crowning achievements as director was this biography of one of the most influential political figures of the 20th Century.

Obviously influenced by the supremely talented director David Lean, whose visionary epics like Lawrence of Arabia made enigmatic characters larger than life and whose perfect work defied comparison to any other director, Attenborough tried for an epic but failed to get the story up on its feet and walking under its own power. The result is a flawed collection of set pieces that nonetheless won eight Academy Awards.

Gandhi - the first flaw is the fact that Richard Attenborough put his name above the title, dubbing it something like "A Richard Attenborough film of Gandhi." The name has been shortened to "Gandhi" on the video box but the title credit still reads like a glitzy paperback by Stephen King or Danielle Steele, or one of the numerous popular pulp authors.

As the story begins Gandhi (Ben Kingsley) is a London-educated lawyer in South Africa who is discriminated against by the Apartheid government. In response to his maltreatment he begins his organization of fellow Hindus into a passive resistance against the government.

As he gradually perfects his strategy, his nonviolent demonstrations eventually bring Premier Jan Smuts to grant rights to the Indian population. The real Gandhi spent twenty years on this crusade, perfecting his theories and putting them into practice in South Africa, however the film deals with this as if it were a mere episode and moves on to bigger and better things - Gandhi in India…

The general course of Gandhi's exploits in India is broadly indicated including the work he did to unite Hindus and Muslims and to break down the Indian caste system where "Untouchables" were little more than beasts of burden - both of which had mixed results as far as success is concerned - but we get little sense of what Gandhi the man was really like. Indeed, characterization is one of the main functions of biography in my opinion, but it is strangely lacking in this story, not only for the protagonist Mohandas K. Gandhi, but also for major recurring characters like Gandhi's wife Kasturba (Rohini Hattagandy) and the Indian Hindu and Muslim political leaders who continually work with Gandhi towards their common goal of an independent Indian nation. Gandhi's civil disobedience as shown by the great march to the sea to break the British salt monopoly was a huge event in real life, but the movie fails to establish enough historical context for the viewer to perceive that fact. Gandhi's numerous hunger strikes were also depicted.

Things are not all bad about Gandhi, however, I can laud the performance of Ben Kingsley who IS Gandhi as far as I could tell, bearing a remarkable resemblance to the towering figure who became known among his followers as Mahatma (Great Soul).

Ben Kingsley, who is actually of Indian extraction, so far as the limitations imposed by the script, did a superlative job in portraying the protagonist. If there was any failure in the characterization, let it be laid at the feet of the screenwriter and director Richard Attenborough who failed to provide enough quirks and foibles to Kingsley. It is well known that the real Gandhi had plenty but Attenborough chose to ignore the nuances that would round out the character and instead drove hard for sainthood for a man he obviously admires.

The supporting cast, particularly Sayeed Jaffrey and other Indian politicians do bang up jobs with all too short screen time and thin script characterizations of important historical figures like Nehru and Jinnah. On the other hand, for a film obviously meant to evoke sympathy for Gandhi, much too much importance is allocated to the Anglo actors, especially newspaper reporters Martin Sheen and Candice Bergen - again a fault of Attenborough's decision making.

All in all there are many good things to like about Gandhi including good photography and a bevy of fine actors, but we are hampered by a story that lacks point of view and rather aimless direction on the part of director Richard Attenborough.

Certainly a movie to see to give a little historical flavor to an important figure but do not take it for the definitive biography of Gandhi or you will be misled. Three stars.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS