Gandhi

It really has been rather a dull time for me as Autumn takes firm hold - a changing of seasons has brought on a change of moods and my head seems to want to go to more serious places. One of these over the past week has been to finally get the shrink wrap off the Gandhi DVD I bought a while back on a whim that I wanted to learn more about the man, his ideas and that time in history. I bought his autobiography too, but never got further than the first two chapters back then - a sign of the lack of discipline I have in doing anything that may actually be good for me. But this week the time seemed right and I settled down to the 3 hour plus epic that beat E.T. to Oscar glory in 1982. Now I may have seen parts of this over the years but never the full movie so a lot of this was new to me despite it almost reaching its silver anniversary... The first thing that hit me was the sheer scale of it: the early scenes setting president for something very grand in size, scope and ambition - so much so that I felt overwhelmed instantly, in the same way I did when I saw Laurence of Arabia for the first time. I was very moved by the story and felt a constant lump in my throat to think of how these ideas were just as relevant today as ever, and by the realisation that all this was true, that one man (and a very small man at that!) did make all this difference. Non violent resistance is such a powerful idea; so simple and true it resonates in the heart of any human being that values to be called such. Ben Kingsley is, of course, magnificent in a performance so natural that it has lost nothing in the passage of time, and it makes me realise that I've never seen him be bad in a movie - and the cast of stars supporting him (not to mention the largest number of extras ever assembled) is just too phenomenal to contemplate in this age, it simply could never happen now! All in all it has made me think quite a bit and taught me a great deal. I just need to finish the book now to embellish the ideas firmly. It's good once in a while to take a look at something old - it's refreshing. Kx