Review: Gandhi My Father

GANDHI MY FATHER CAST: Akshaye Khanna, Darshan Jariwala, Shefali Shah, Bhoomika Chawla DIRECTOR: Feroz Abbas Khan RATING: Good

I n a country that deifies Mahatma Gandhi, it takes courage to make a film about his troubled relationship with his prodigal son Harilal.

Feroz Abbas Khan's Gandhi My Father, takes on the subject and does a walking on glass balancing act. The successful play Gandhi Viruddh Gandhi (in turn based on a Gujarati book) from which the film takes its subject, was critical of Gandhi for sacrificing his own family in the cause of the nation. What Gandhi thought was fair, was interpreted as harsh by his eldest son Harilal, whose life went into a downward spiral from the time his father stopped him from going to England to study law.

Gandhi (Darshan Jariwala) comes across as a severely principled father, who publicly disowns his degenerate son (Akshaye Khanna), but privately hopes he will reform and return to the fold. Kasturba (Shefai Shah) is caught between the two feuding men.

The film moves from South Africa, where Harilal participates in his father's Satyagraha before angrily returning to India with wife Gulab (Bhoomika Chawla) and kids, to a long span at various spots in India-simultaneously capturing the rise of Gandhi and the fall of Harilal, whose failed businesses, alcoholism and blind rebellious rage end with his death as a lawaris in a Mumbai hospital, a few months after his father's assassination.

Khan's sympathy is clearly with Mahatma Gandhi, but in the absence of any contrast with the lives of the other sons, it is difficult to gauge just how much his father's revered public image contributed to Harilal's ruin. Did Gandhi's refusal to give him a formal education actually lead to this lifelong revolt by Harilal? His oneman mutiny made him convert to Islam and back to Hinduism, and generally denounce his father, causing Mahatma Gandhi untold grief.

Because Khan is clear that Gandhi is not to be blamed, the film just goes on and on about Harilal's endless problems, without coming up with a strong point of conflict to give the story some shades and depth.

There are no problems with the film's technical and aesthetic aspects, but Khan's treatment also gives away his stage roots, the way dialogue between two characters gets a slightly stilted feel (everybody else in the frame freezes) or the self conscious entries and exits. So as not to confuse the foreign audiences, he includes a lot of historical episodes (excellent newsreel recreation), which, because they are known to the Indian viewer, end up holding up the flow of the film.

The performances are fine - Darshan Jariwala (obviously fake fan ears) makes an intense if not too charismatic Gandhi. Akshaye Khanna is too look-at-me, especially when compared with Shefali Shah and Bhoomika' Chawla's realistic performances.

Even with its few flaws, Gandhi My Father is honest, quality cinema. It's not for those expecting entertainment, but for those who might wish to see something different and maybe, thought-provoking.