BEFORE: So, you may wonder why I'm watching this film today, since it doesn't fit in thematically with the rest of January's programming. A film about a man who promoted non-violence sandwiched in between a James Bond film and tomorrow's action-based film. Truth is, I've tried to program this film before, like after "Iron Man 3" or "The Dictator" for the Ben Kingsley tie-in, and for a while it was next to "The Iron Lady" and "The Queen" for the British empire/bio-pic connection, and it doesn't really fit in anywhere, so this is just as good a place for it as any.
Since "Gandhi" was the Best Picture winner for 1982, let it serve as a reminder, then, that Oscar season is upon us - the 2014 nominations will be announced this week, and TCM has released their schedule for their "31 Days of Oscar" programming. Things are looking up because I've already seen the majority of the films on their list, and right now there are only three films I'm looking to add. Two are not Best Picture winners but are films I've been waiting for, and the third is 2011's Best Picture winner, "The Artist". (What took so long for some channel to run that?)
Edward Fox carries over from playing "M" in "Never Say Never Again", and that was the best linking I could find, given the films that are still on my list. I had to go pretty far down the cast list to find a link, but it's not as low as I've ever gone. And after tonight's film, I'll have seen 70 of the 86 Best Picture winners, with another two on the watchlist. I have to decide now if I want to try for the rest.
THE PLOT: Biography of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the lawyer who became the famed leader of the Indian revolts against the British rule through his philosophy of nonviolent protest.
AFTER: Well, Gandhi has shamed me from beyond the grave. Here I was yesterday, ranting about my inferior cable service, and that's clearly a First World problem. Along comes this movie to remind me that people live in the Third World, with entirely different problems, also known as actual problems, like racism and oppression and struggling under the yoke of colonial Imperialism.
I admit that before I watched this I knew very little about Gandhi - hey, I'm not a historian, I work in the film business. If a movie hasn't been made about something, it's probably not important enough for me to learn about, right? So there are many things I wondered about Gandhi - like why is his first name sometimes listed as "Mohandas" and sometimes "Mahatma"? And what the heck is non-violent resistance, anyway?
Turns out it's a lot like passive aggressiveness. That's not really accurate, and it's a little snarky on my part, and I should really try to turn the snark down tonight, it's a serious film. The religious philosophy of "turn the other cheek" gets taken to the extreme, if you can imagine protestors shoving their cheeks right into their oppressor's faces, pretty much asking to get hit. So that's really more like aggressive passiveness, if you ask me. I mentioned the other day how I thought that suicide was the ultimate passive-aggressive move, and now I think a hunger strike is a close second.
I also didn't know that Gandhi spent time in South Africa as a young lawyer, which is where he led his first protests against inequality - I didn't know so many Hindus and Muslims lived in South Africa, either. Hey, if this film sends me to the web to learn more about the man and his times, then it's had a positive effect.
I think today's protestors could learn a lot from this film. Remember those "Occupy Wall Street" people? A bunch of entitled hipsters sitting around to accomplish...what, exactly? Plus, they were among friends, had their cell phones and iPods for entertainment, and were surrounded by take-out restaurants. Why couldn't they have followed Gandhi's example and gone on a hunger strike? I would have even volunteered to stand guard and make sure they weren't receiving food in any way, because it's only through true suffering that people can enact social change.
Gandhi also favored religious unity, seeking out the commonality in the Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religions - it's a heck of an idea, and one wonders if much of the world's troubles could be lessened if more people would tolerate all religions. Or just get rid of all of them, I'm good either way.
This is a tough one to rate, because it's a very long film, and not always "entertaining" in the traditional sense, but of course it's an important film about an important subject. But if I'm being nitpicky, there wasn't much context of world events, for example when they talked about the war going on, I wasn't sure if they were referring to World War I or II - but then again, they probably didn't call World War I by that name at the time, because who knew?
Also starring Ben Kingsley (last seen in "Ender's Game"), John Gielgud (last seen in "Secret Agent"), Trevor Howard (last seen in "Mutiny on the Bounty"), Martin Sheen (last seen in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2"), Richard Griffiths (last seen in "Hugo"), Nigel Hawthorne, Candice Bergen (last seen in "The In-Laws"), Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth (last seen in "A Passage to India"), Saeed Jaffrey, Athol Fugard, Geraldine James, with cameos from Daniel Day-Lewis, Bernard Hill and John Ratzenberger (last heard in "Planes").
RATING: 6 out of 10 registration cards
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