Word: gandhis
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...GANDHI is technically a fine film. Attenborough's direction is solid, despite some lapses in John Briley's generally adequate script. Attenborough gets good performances out of his star-heavy cast, which includes John Gielgud, Martin Sheen, Trevor Howard, and Jan Charleson. But Candace Bergen as Katherine Bourke White is a beautifully leaden exception and the actors occasionally get stuck in tight spots. Sheen, for instance as a New York Times reporter who follows Gandhi both in South Africa and India and reminisces wistfully about his early meetings with the Mahatma, has to say, "We were a bit like college...
...Because Gandhi lives in the movie as a force or principle rather than a person, he lives only in his opposition to those antithetical forces which confront him--the injustice, degradation and blunt evil of colonialism and racism. Since these afflict millions, first in South Africa, where Gandhi wages his nonviolent war against the racism of Jan Smuts's regime, and then in India, Gandhi and his battle necessarily take place on the national and international stage. And here the movie wins its audience even if it loses much of its humanity...
...Gandhi is enjoyable largely because of its ability to evoke what P. R. men call the sweep of history. The excitement of masses of people in a huge flux-the same kind of excitement one finds in Reds or which David Lean Created in. say. Lawrence of Arabia or Doctor Zhivago is present in abundance and animates Gandhi. Long shots of a crowd standing with umbrellas in a heavy downpour chanting for Gandhi or of converging columns of people marching behind the Mahatma as he marches to the sea to defy the government drive in this impression convincingly...
...This too is the bitter legacy left by colonial powers.) There is an unwillingness to see beyond the grossness and malice of a mine owner who sends mounted troops out to beat protestors or the cupidity of a flaccid land owner who is squeezing everything out of his tenants. Gandhi, however, is a movie of surfaces, and these thorned ones are convincing. They make all the more stirring Gandhi's own triumphs over the viceroys and their empire--victories which are human and satisfying for the Indians and the audience and pleasantly humiliating for the British...
Much has been made of Ben Kingsley's acting as Gandhi, and he certainly deserves a great deal of praise for his portrayal of the sphinx-like reticence and overwhelming humility of the Mahatma. He also utters Gandhi's gospel-like sayings with enough gravity to mean something and enough reserve to keep them from sinking. Kingsley, however, is limited in what he can do with the role, for Gandhi's relationships with others are uniformly simple. His holiness, in effect, restricts him to a single dimension...