16 November,2021 09:52 AM IST | Mumbai | Shunashir Sen
Gandhi (1982)
. Father figure: Sometimes, it takes an outsider's lens to document the history of a nation. That's what happened with the epic 1982 film Gandhi, where the main cast and crew are largely English, including the lead actor, Ben Kingsley. The movie is a straight-up biopic on the man who sacrificed his entire life for the sake of not just the country's freedom, but also to promote the ideals of non-violence and peace. It remains one of the most compelling film biographies of all time and went on to win eight Academy Awards, including that of Best Actor for Kingsley.
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. Showing their metal: There is a rich history of anti-war films, of which Full Metal Jacket (1987) is a hard-hitting take on the US-Vietnam conflict. It follows the journey of a war journalist, Private Joker, as he graduates from army training to covering the war in the Southeast Asian country. The plot is divided into two halves. The first revolves around Sergeant Hartman, the drill instructor at the training camp who is a hard taskmaster, to put it mildly. The second part shows the battle on the ground, and the last sequence - where Joker shoots dead a teenaged Vietnamese sniper - shows the moral conflict that soldiers in particular face, and the futility of war in general.
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. One for all: When Irish rockers U2 ended the concert they had played in Navi Mumbai in 2019, they chose to bring the curtains down with the track One, released in 1991. The reason, one assumes, is that they wanted to leave the audience with the message of peace and hope that the song embodies. The lyrics emphasise how we are all equal as human beings despite the man made borders that we have created for ourselves. The tune starts off with a soothing lilt before lead singer Bono reaches higher octaves at the end with the line, "Love is a temple/ Love the higher lord." This is music that's meant to heal.
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. A better place: It's no coincidence that peace and togetherness are recurring themes in reggae music, considering that the genre symbolises how white people have historically subjugated those of African origins. Bob Marley, of course, is the biggest reggae star of all time and while he has many hits that talk about unity, it's one of his lesser-known tracks that truly drives the point home. It's called I know a place, and the lyrics contain lines like, "And there is people like you, people like me/ People need to be free/ And there's a place in the sun/ Where there is love for everyone/ Where we can be."
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. Mother of all books: Kurt Vonnegut's innate sense of humanism shines through in almost all his novels, including Slaughterhouse-Five, his most famous book, and the excellent Cat's Cradle. But if you are to pick up just one title from his impressive anti-war oeuvre, let it be Mother Night. The novel, first published in 1962, is about a man who loses his sense of identity after enlisting as an American spy working amongst Nazis. The plot details the intense psychological damage that war can bring about in people, even as they seek to hold on to their ideals of kindness and justice.
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