Content and analysis of Gandhi - Movie Review Example

Review and analysis of movie “Gandhi” Gandhi is an epic biographic film produced in 1982. It dramatizes Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s life, who is the leader of non-violent, non-cooperative independence movement against the United Kingdom’s country rules in the 19th century. The film is about Gandhi’s life from the defining movement in 1893. This film was released in India, in United Kingdom and the United Sates in 1982. The main starring is Ben Kingsley. The film starts with a statement from its makers defining their approach to the problem of filming Gandhi’s complex life history. “No life of a man can be enclosed in one telling. There is neither a way to give each year an allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to structure a lifetime. Act to be done is to be faithful in spirit to record and to find one’s way to the heart of the man…” The film opens with Gandhi assassination on 30 January 1948, and his funeral. There is no depiction of Gandhi’s early life in the film. Gandhi is taken to training of an Indian sitting in a compartment of first-class in South Africa despite having a ticket. He started a non-violent campaign for the rights of all Indians in South Africa after realizing that the laws were biased against Indians. After being arrested several times, the government finally relent him by recognizing some Indians rights. Gandhi was invited back to Indian after a successful victory in South Africa. He was then considered considered being a national hero. He was exhorted to take up the fight for independence of Indians (Swaraj, Quit India) from the British Empire. Gandhi agreed and decided to mount a non-violent, on-co-operation campaign of unprecedented scale, which coordinated a million of Indians all over the world. Nevertheless, a high attention is generated by the campaign as British faced intense pressure from the public. Britain granted Indian independence after the World War II. Although Indians celebrated this victory, their troubles were still not through. Tensions of religions raised and erupted into nation-wide violence between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi, horrified, declared a strike of hunger concluding that he could not eat until the fighting ends. The fighting, even after Gandhi declared not to eat, did not end. Religion subsequently divided the country. It was determined that the current know Bangladesh (the eastern part of Indian, and the northwest area of India) places where Muslims were in large quantity would become a country called Pakistan. This gave them hope that if Muslims stayed in their own country, violence would stop. Gandhi was opposed to this idea, and was even willing to allow Muhammad Ali Jinnah to be the first Indians Prime minister. Gandhi tried to bring peace between the two countries during his last days. He angered many dissidents in the two countries, one of which assassinated him heading to the end of the film. “O God”, Gandhi’s voice is heard while film fades to black as Godse shoots him. The film ends with ashes of Gandhi scattered on the holy Ganga. Gandhi produces another voice as this happens to show the end of the movie. Linking this analysis with the provided link, we can clearly see that from the film Gandhi’s main aim was to fight injustice and all evil with soul-force. He gives the message of truth and non-violence, unbounded, and of supreme love. People of India gave him the name Mahatma means the great soul. He left an indelible sign on the history of human. His thoughts were relevant for all people who aspire for a better living. The national memorial trust of Gandhi made a humble attempt to perpetuate his memory by presenting his first biographical documentary film of his life which reflects the history of Indians struggle for freedom in a large measure. His immediate target was to establish an abiding thought current and deposition which have the power to conduct one to his ultimate realization. He targeted to unite Muslims and Hindus and stop violence between them. He became the prime mover of struggle of Indians for independence and at the same he was a spiritual leader whose philosophy influenced millions of people. Gandhi, in the film, declared that his opponent was to be weaned by patience and sympathy from error. He preached and practices a non-violence policy. His approach was laid on a very simple philosophy in which he remained trustful and truthful to making his dreams become true. By reading the information provided, Gandhi’s ultimate aim in all activities is spiritual realization. . He used satyagraha (insistence of truth) as the means by which he hoped to aim his target. He immediately aimed to establish an abiding thought current and deposition which had the power to conduct one to this ultimate realization. He made his aim to come into possession of this spiritual awareness or thought current as a vital and permanent experience, not as a piece of information. He believed that complete realization is in fact possible in the embodied state. Gandhi’s final truth substitution formula for practical application through satyagraha is Violence is unreal; non-violence is real. Non-violence is equated with truth or soul, or with eternal spiritual reality which alone has the power since it alone exists’ violence is equated with illusion or material formation, the ephemeral, superimposed reality which is inert and formless. Non-violence is whatever removes obstruction to truth. Since Gandhi’s ahimsa includes the component of visible non-violence, the truth formula is completed. All is full and beautiful, no negative; privation or lack is left where the substitution of ahimsa for ahimsa (real for real) is completed. Gandhi writes that, non-violence is negative. Truth stands for the fact which he highest religion. Truth is self evident, non-violence is it’s matures fruit. In Naokhali, Gandhi was making a similar attempt against Hindu-Muslim mutual slaughter to test his principle and demonstrate the perfect efficacy of soul-force. It was a test-case of confronting insuperable material forces of violence and untruth with only a small band of votaries of ahimsa. In his final fast to bring about conciliation between Hindu and Muslims factions warring in Delhi after independence, Gandhi made a similar effort and reiterated the necessity of demonstrating the universal applicability of satyagraha against whatever evils the age and locale presented. He advised courses of non-violent action against possible Japanese aggression in World War II and finally as the only antidote against atomic war. Gandhi believes the categorical nature of the problem requires a categorical solution. If good and evil are comprehensive and exclusive categories in assessing human moral consciousness and consequent action, and if evil is incorrigible to force or violence, then the solution must involve a categorically opposite and yet practically superior force capable of completing the substitution for violence where that usually be the chosen means. Knowing where such choice would lead, no choice must be left. Given the amplified dimensions of modern individual life and the immediate international responsiveness to local events "on one hand", and threat of escalation of nuclear self-destruction on the other, mere practical considerations seem to rule out stopgap and partial solutions that do not resolve but only shift conflict and delay the conflagration. From both the film and the provided information, we can conclude that Gandhi’s dream and actions of uniting people of India became true. He finally stands to be a role model to many leaders. Works cited Gandhi. Dir. Richard Attenborough. Columbia pictures, 1982.film. Read More