Review of Gandhi (1982) by Ezrahmae M — 12 Feb 2012

âGandhiâ? is a movie that presents a realistic description of the Indian political activistâ(TM)s life. The movie begins at the end, showing Gandhi being shot by an assassin at a public event, and followed by a scene of thousands of mourners, which really shows that when Gandhi died, it was a national tragedy.

The movie Gandhi starts off with the assassination of Gandhi on January 30, 1948. He was killed because of the split of Hindus and Muslims into Pakistan and India, instead of trying to keep the country united. The story then jumps back to early in his life, when he is a practicing attorney. He is traveling in South Africa on a train and is thrown off because he refuses to give up his first class seat. The conductor wants him to move because he is Indian. This upsets him and he organizes a burning of the discriminatory codes. The protestors are arrested and released.

Gandhi is motivated by religious means; he believes that everyone is equal in Godâ(TM)s eyes. He gets involved in several movements for equality, and he stresses non-violence very strongly. His followers vow to fight their oppressors to the death, but he discourages them from violence.

He and his wife form a sort of commune of purity. During one scene, they ask all of Gandhiâ(TM)s followers to burn all of their clothes that were made in Britain and wear only what they can make themselves. Gandhi practices this for the rest of his life, usually wearing nothing but a loincloth.

In another scene, Gandhi is in jail, and some of his followers are peacefully gathered in a square. The police lock up the square and kill almost everyone, over 1,500 people. Gandhi is disgusted and discouraged. He continues to preach non-violence, but the Indians do have occasional conflict with the police. Gandhiâ(TM)s counter to the popular phrase âan eye for an eyeâ? says that after that, âeveryone will be blind.â? Gandhi leads several organized protests against British rule. In one, all Indians stopped doing their work, and the major cities in the country were disabled. Another time, he led a 165-mile walk to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt. The Indians made their own salt out of the sea.

A turning point on the Indian fight for independence was the western press. Reporters witnessed a scene in which Indians tried to get into a factory row by row, and were brutally beaten by soldiers, row by row, as the women pulled the dead and injured away. Also, a reporter for Time magazine met Gandhi when he was in jail, took a lot of pictures of him, and made his plight known to the world.

Finally, Gandhi travels to Europe to negotiate Indiaâ(TM)s freedom. While there, they cover some ground, but the actual release comes several years later, on August 15, 1947. After they are free, there is a civil war between the Hindus and the Muslims. They are forced to move around so they are in separate parts, India and Pakistan, and total chaos breaks out. Gandhi goes on another one of his fasts and refuses to eat until he is convinced all fighting has stopped. This is very difficult, but is accomplished. Soon afterwards, he got assassinated.

The movie âGandhiâ? is related to World Religion because it is very spiritual and it presented many different religions throughout the movie. In several scenes, Gandhi speaks about of the similarities between the many different religious traditions and how they are all not so dissimilar and that they could learn quite a bit from each other. This is one of the main spiritual messages of this movie, is that all religions could learn from each other, and should get along, because as Gandhi's childhood priest said, "it did not matter what book was being read, as long as God was being worshipped." I really like this movie. The story and the meaning behind it are really virtuous. If people would only take on Gandhiâ(TM)s ethics and belief, this world that we live in would be less violent and have more unity between us. I would definitely recommend this to be watched. I know one day, when my daughter is old enough to understand, I will have her watch the movie because it is very educational.