By Gurmukh Singh
Toronto: A master of his craft that he is, filmmaker Hansal Mehta is third time back at the Toronto International Film Festival with his masterclass work this time: Gandhi.
A eight-episode series, Gandhi captures the transformative journey of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from a diffident, unsure young married man to a human rights crusader to becoming the globally revered Mahatma.
Mehta and his cast were on hand as the first two parts of Gandhi premiered at TIFF to a standing ovation.
Based on historian Ramachandra Guha’s books Gandhi before India and Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World, Mehta’s Gandhi captures the trials and tribulations that made the young man into a steadfast adherent of truth and non-violence.
Calling this film the “most personal work of my life,” Mehta said the aim of his film is to humanize Gandhi and familiarize people with who he really was.
He said people only know that Gandhi was India’s Father of Nation and he is a rupee note.
Opening with a flashback to Gandhi’s arrival in Durban as a lawyer to represent a Gujarati merchant family and his eviction at night from a whites-only carriage on a train at the Pietermaritzburg railway station in 1893, the film begins by capturing the most defining moment of Gandhi’s transformative journey.
Back to his native Porbandar, what follows are one after another defining moments in the life of Gandhi who is just married and not sure about what to do till his wife Kasturba throws her support behind his plans to go to London to become a barrister.
Supported by riveting cinematography, period settings and original score by A. R. Rahman, this serialized film depicts Gandhi as a little young father in a close-knit family, his passage to Britain, in his inner conflicts in London and meeting the likes of Dadabhai Naoroji – all part of his inner transformation to become a symbol of non-violence and truth on the global stage.
Curiously, real-life couple Pratik Gandhi – who worked with Mehta on Scam 1992 – and his wife Bhamini Oza Gandhi also make an engaging Gandhi-Kasturba pair in this film.
Gandhi is Hansal Mehta’s films showcased at the Toronto International Film Festival.
He was first at TIFF in 2012 with his Rajkummar Rao-starrer Shahid in followed by Omerta in 2016.
