Thursday, October 2, 2008

Gandhi (1982)

Gandhi (1982)

Director : Richard Attenborough.
Genere : Biography / Drama / History.
Cast : Ben Kingsley, Rohini Hattangadi, Candice Bergen, John Gielgud.
Rating : Master piece

Albert Einstein said(on Mahatma Gandhi): "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth!". This might be the greatest challenge that Richard Attenborough might have faced while directing “Gandhi”; to transform an extraordinary epic of a simple man, who lived an unbelievable life to become a legend, into a moving picture format. Even “My Experiments with Truth” won’t be enough to understand the Mahatma. In this film, one of the most complex and well said biographical movies of all time, over 50 years of his biography has been drafted.

The movie starts while Gandhi was in South Africa where he was dragged out of a train. This was the incident that gave young Gandhi the fire or motivation to fight against apartheid. It was in South Africa he experiments his various methods of Satyagraha. And latter he returns to India to continue his activities there. The movie ends with the assassination of Gandhi by an extremist Hindu radical.

“Gandhi” deals mainly with wide perspectives and mostly with Gandhi’s contribution to the Indian Independence, than concentrating the person-Gandhi. In this manner Attenborough was able to focus more on the movie and could retell the epic in a fast phase. The Art department and Cinematography have played a crucial and fantastic role in recreating the time and places for the story. And the most outstanding thing about this movie is Ben Kingsley’s Oscar winning transformation as Gandhi.
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