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Show 'Gandhi' - the Indian Ascetic well known for his success in South Africa. Turning his back on the disorganized, jealous politicians who want freedom from British rule, Gandhi takes an extended train tour of the country he left as a child. When he returns months later to Bombay, he has realized that India must be freed if its people are to prosper. Thus launched is a remarkable career of peaceful peace-ful non-cooperation that finally fin-ally embarrasses the British out of the sub-continent. Compared to most heavily pushed, much publicized films of recent years, "Gandhi" "Gand-hi" wants to teach or instruct the world about its central figure. Dramatic tension is minimized, natural curiosity about the circumstances of Gandhi's death is cancelled out of the drama in the opening moments of the movie: We're told he was gunned down in '79 by a Hindu fanatic angered at the Mahatma's solicitude for Moslems. Look at the man, think about the destructive power of prejudices and exercise the personal dignity of looking to all that is best in other people. Feel what Gandhi was about, says the film. And on the whole, it works. Its small lapses seem trifling, except for one curious interlude near the film's end where Candice Bergen, playing a magazine photographer, enters into some long dialogues with the Mahatma that wander purposelessly pur-poselessly while, unfortunately, unfortun-ately, breaking the story's pace. But the interlude is brief and one is left instead with the moving story of a saint-like man about whom Albert Einstein said, "Generations "Gen-erations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." Nehru, played respectively by Rohini Hattangady and Roshan Seth, and Martin Sheen's occasional appearances appear-ances in the guise of a New York reporter, all lend power to.the action. . . lhe tilm starts with Gandhi's Gand-hi's appearance in South Africa in 183. Within a matter of days, the young Indian attorney, educated in England, comes up against the harsh racial laws that rule the country. Thwarted in his efforts to challenge apartheid in the courts, he turns to peaceful civil disobedience. dis-obedience. "It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings," he is alleged to have said at the time. After a 23 year struggle to end discrimination against the Indians, his campaign succeeds and the government govern-ment agrees to liberalize its racial laws. The Mahatma, now 46, returns to India where he is by Ben Read Gandhi, starring Ben King-sley. King-sley. Produced and directed by Richard Attenborough. Just before the end of "Gandhi," a group of young Hindus comes to the Indian ascetic. World War II is over, independence has been granted India and a great strife between the Moslems and Hindus engulfs the country of 350 million. Fighting is fierce and widespread. wide-spread. Waves of refugees wash in both directions over the Pakistani borders; the widely separated nations of East and West Pakistan have been created from India's flanks to separate, by national boundary, the Moslem Mos-lem majorities in the north. Gandhi fasts in penance for the misery of his country. Well into his seventies, he gradually weakens as the violence continues. At last the strife begins to taper off. It stops entirely. The whole nation turns its eyes expectantly to the tiny, stooped sage who hovers on the verge of starvation. The delegation of young Hindus has come to report that fighting has ceased all over the country. As they leave, suddenly a pockmarked, agonized man rushes back to Gandhi and cries he is going o hell, he has killed a Moslem child in revenge for ihe murder of his own son. Hat. he shouts at Gandhi, I A-on't carry your self-inflict ed death to hell with me. Gandhi looks compassionately compassion-ately at his visitor, consumed so by self-horror, and instructs in-structs him to find and raise as his own son an orphan whose parents have been killed in the violence. "That orphan should be a Moslem," Mos-lem," the Mahatma gently chides his Hindu visitor, and the child should be nurtured as the Moslem he is. Episodes like this are the beauty of this 200 minute epic biography-ambiguous moments, dilemnas of a moral order and Gandhi's overpowering love, his struggle for a self-sufficient and proud India. The Mahatma, meaning "great souled" in Sanskrit, is played beautifully by Ben Kingsley. Technique is straight-forward and fitting because Richard Attenborough, Attenbo-rough, its producer and guiding force, wants the audience to concentrate its full attention on Gandhi. Eschewing special effects, the film - when it leaves the action - dwells on shots of the surreal Indian countryside from a moving train or the ceaselessly changing expressions expres-sions of people in a crowd. Sir John Gielgud gives a convincing portrait as one o the genuinely confused British Bri-tish landlords who blunder between spontaneous reactions reac-tions of anger as Gandhi's Free India Movement gains momentum. Gandhi's wife and his protege Pandit |