Blu-Ray Review:
Gandhi 2-disc
By Jason Gillard
*Screen shots are not from the Blu-Ray source.
Movie
Let me start by saying I have never seen the movie Gandhi before I sat down to watch it for this review. I really knew little to nothing about the man. I knew he was a proponent for peace and non-violence but other than that I knew pretty much nothing about his life. After seeing this movie I really got an appreciation for the man and what he stood for. The movie is over 3 hours long, but I felt that it certainly didn't feel that way because I found it so interesting. Sir Ben Kingsley plays Gandhi and I thought he did an excellent job. Some of the features on the second disc in this set show some archival footage of Gandhi and I was amazed at how close Kingsley looked like the real man. The Film opens with a disturbing look at Gandhi's assassination and then proceeds from there to show how he deals with discrimination in South Africa. Gandhi is a trained Lawyer and the director Attenborough takes us along as Gandhi rediscovers India and rises to become a spokesman and a leader for that country. Throughout the film Gandhi promotes non-violence as a way of standing up to the British rule in the country at that time. It also shows how he was imprisoned many times and how Gandhi would go on hunger strikes to get the people to listen to him. Sir Ben Kingsley does a phenomenal job bringing this man to life and later would win a best actor award for his portrayal. If you don't know the story of Gandhi you owe it to yourself to watch this film and I am sure you will come away with great admiration as I did.
9 out of 10
Video
Gandhi was presented in a 1080p 2.35:1 aspect ratio. When watching the film you cannot be impressed by the cinematography in the film. Some of the shots are breathtaking. I thought the transfer here was really good. I wouldn't say it was reference quality, but certainly above average and would best any of the previous versions on DVD. Black levels are pretty good and detail in certain scenes is sharp as well. Throughout most of the film I felt the picture had a softness to it. But I think this might have been done on purpose to hide some of the flaws that were in hair and makeup. When Gandhi fasts for weeks I am sure he would look at lot worse than he was presented here. Grain was present but not to the point where it was distracting. I think it gave it more of a film like image which I think suits this type of film. Overall I thought the transfer was well done given the source material.
8 out of 10
Audio
Audio recording done in the 1980's was not that great and even though the movie has a Dolby 5.1 TrueHD soundtrack, the sound quality is definitely not up to par. Most of the audio is centered across the front three speakers. I found that certain sound effects do not come across as realistic sounding. Gunshots at the beginning of the film sound hollow and not very realistic. This type of sound is present throughout most of the film. Gandhi uses the railway to get around India and even the train didn't sound realistic. This is not a fault of the audio but of the way in which these things were recorded back then. The score for the film comes across OK and dialogue is pretty clear, but I would say that given the source material, Sony has done the best they can with what they had to work with.
7 out of 10
Extras
Here is what you get in the way of extras:
Disc 1
Gandhi's Legacy: A Picture-in-Graphics Track
Director's commentary
Disc 2
The following low resolution content was previously produced.
Vintage Newsreel Footage
Sir Ben Kingsley Talks about Gandhi
In Search of Gandhi
Reflections on Ben
Madeleine Slade: An Englishwoman Abroad
The Funeral
Looking Back
Shooting an Epic in India
Designing Gandhi
From the Director's Chair
The Words of Mahatma Gandhi
The Making of Gandhi Photo Montage
There is a lot of material here and most of it came from Sony's 25th anniversary DVD. That's not a bad thing because the content is fairly well done. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is the PIP track. It's nice to see some hi-def content included here. I found watching the Vintage Newsreel Footage interesting. I also liked "Shooting an Epic in India" which detailed some of the issues they ran into. I also liked "In Search of Gandhi" which details how Attenborough got on to this project. There is a lot of info here but for me the best use of my time was watching the PIP track because there is a lot of interesting information given there.
8 out of 10
Overall
Overall I thought this was a great film with a well done Blu-ray. You get a decent picture and a bunch of good extras. Like I said in the opening, this is a movie that you should see and what better way than on Blu-ray.
8.5 out of 10
Gandhi 2-disc Blu-ray is available now from Amazon.com