Gran Torino – a beginner’s guide to Gandhiism
If you haven’t seen Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood directed drama about a bitter old man’s sweet turn in the twilight yet, please do yourselves a favour and stop reading this post further as it contains spoilers and crucial plot points discussed in detail. If you have already seen the movie, then this post is for you.
So they say in the trailers and other reviews that Wally Kowalski is a bitter old man and he went out of his way and selflessly indulged in some heroics to save the day for the neighbouring ‘hmong ‘ family.
However it isnt as simple as they would have you to believe. Walt is a complicated person, like you and me, though the way the first 30 to35 minutes unfold, you would be doing double takes as to whether you are watching an 80s Indian movie about a grandpa ditched by his children. Fear not for it is Walt who shuns and despises his children and it might look as if the whole world that he once felt connected to in the 60s and 70s working at the Ford in Detroit has passed on hands and he is pissed off at that and other things about the whole world which according to him is his neighbourhood which is now flush with non-white ‘descendants of recent immigrants’. His only note of cheer in his life, post his wife’s demise (it is the funeral and wake that begin the film) is his lawn which he maintains at his age and the Gran Torino that built with his own hand. It is his connection with his days of vigour and substance. He resolutely resists the pleas of his sons to move out of the ‘ghetto’ into a decent neighbourhood, though he hates with every breath his neighbours that are as strange to him as he to them. His entire being, it seems is filled with only hate towards the world and to top it all, his deceased wife has asked the local priest to ‘talk’ him into giving a confession. The efforts of the priest are an additional irritation to his life in an already long list.
These segments filled with dark humor are amusing, but shockingly uncouth. There is hardly any subtlety in these sequences. Sample this. Walt is pissed off and irritated by the attire of his grand daughter in the wake of his wife. It is told to us by a closeup shot of the grand daughter’s shabby unbecoming dress as well as a murmur accompanied dialogue from Walt. For a moment I did a virtual doubletake as to whether the director was indeed Clint Eastwood who had directed ‘Mystic River’ and ‘Changeling’ – two films that worked so well with subtle touches all around. For everything that irritates Walt about his neighbourhood, there is an explicit, sometimes racist dialogue mouthed out loud accompanied by a ‘trademark’ Clint Eastwood glare which is already clear to anyone who can see it. At this point I was getting a bit uncomfortable as to the course of the movie and the way it was unfolding. However the remaining part of the movie ended with yours truly clapping happily for the director.
The trick that director pulls on us is to provide a misdirection as to why Walt is unhappy with his world. It is not the influx of recent immigrants or the invasion of japanese car makers in USA (that might have cost him his job) that makes him hate his son for being a sales man for Toyota. His apparent xenophobia derives from his military career that took him to the Korean war where he even received a medal of honor. The actual reason is not revealed till the penultimate scene in the movie and that gives a perfect completion to the character and delights you of having patiently waited to find ‘Walt Kowalski ko gussa kyon aatha hai?’(Why is Walt Kowalski angry?). The process of the unveiling of the inner demons of Walt is beautifully aligned with him getting friendly with his Hmong neighbour Sue and Thao. The younger Hmong generation kids do and act like the way Walt expects young kids to – with responsibility and respect for elders and family. These sequences are sure to be copied in bollywood, tollywood and kollywood movies, for the values they extol are what your grandfather and mine have been saying for years!!! Coming back to the story, there is also a confession that he makes to the indefatigable priest who is always behind Walt for the promise he gave to Dorothy (Walt’s wife) – however the real confession would come much later when he locks up Thao in the basement. The point that struck me was the subtlety of narration in the later half is juxtaposed to the uncouthness and loudness that was there in the first 35 minutes . It seems to be intentional – like the film itself slowly becomes a soft and warm narrative as the grandpa eases up with youngsters three generations younger to him.
The biggest message in the movie is however a nod to Gandhiji’s methods of confronting your foes. Gandhiji’s premise according to me is as follows:
1. Violence as a course of action is futile as it provides only end, not a solution.
2. Confronting your enemies standing on a plank of moral superiority without weapons and thereby invoking guilt and remorse is a better way to win your argument.
3. Violent methods do irreparable damage to the next generation leaving the moral fabric of social conscience greatly fractured. Coping up with a broken conscience is far harder task and a tortuous burden on men and women.
These are some basic tenets of Ahimsa that Gandhiji firmly believed in and some reasons why he never supported the armed struggle against the British. There are debates still going on about the validity of these methods. I see this movie as another argument in favour of Ahimsa. Here is how the movie establishes the strength of using Gandhiism as the right choice of solving problems instead of using violent force.
1. Futility of Violence in solving a situation:
Thao, the new found assistant and friend to Walt is assaulted by the Hmong gang when he is returning from work. Walt responds in the only way he knows by retaliating violently against one of the gang members. This does not prove to be a ‘deterrent’ (a widely abused political term to justify anything from nuclear tests, to missile tests to occupying another nation without any justification) as the attack of Thao’s sister soon follows. Walt is surprised by the inability of law enforcement agencies to bring to the book the perpetrators, because Thao’s family is afraid of reporting it(for they know that for any further action on the gang by police will only beget more serious reaction on the family from the gang) and is stricken with guilt of having dragged the youngstersto face the consequence of his actions even if his actions originally were to ‘teach the perpetrators a lesson’. While his was a violent reaction that escalated the consequences for the innocent Thao family, what the family did by not reporting to the police was classic case of ‘inaction’. The director equates the ‘violent action’ and ‘passive inaction’ as the two faces of human helplessness that allows injustice to prevail.
2. Wounds of violent action seldom heal:
This is a subtle message that is revealed with much artistic restraint in the movie. Walt suffers from the demons Korean war. It is interesting that it has to be ‘Korean war’, because unlike the vietnam, it was a successful engagement in a foreign soil for USA to begin with. When the priest prods Walt if he is sorry for killing in the war, Walt doesn’t agree, he lies saying that it is not a burden on his consciousness because he had to simply follow the orders to kill. However he reveals later to Thao that ‘he doesnt feel proud to have a medal conferred for killing unarmed young men who came to surrender’ (not exact paraphrasing). A violent act stays with the mind of the perpetrator for a long time, eats him up from inside and makes the person a bitter person unable to open up for help. Walt himself is a living example of the effect of a violent life, even if it is professional and officially warranted. He advises the young Thao that it might even feel right to avenge standing shoulder to shoulder and firing the gun, but the burden of conscience is too much to bear for it is a cross to bear for the entire life. This passage beautifully highlights how an act of violence has consequences on both sides – victim and the perpetrator. In movies we generally see more of the consequences on the victim’s side, while the consequences of the other side is hardly underlined.Gran Torino is a welcome change from the usual and makes a strong case of avoiding use of violent force where young men and women have to bear the crosses for an ‘executive decision’.
3. Atonement for violence:
Gandhiji firmly believed that satyagraha or ahimsa as a weapon of change is effective only when there is ‘moral superiority’. He demonstrated it when he indefinitely suspended the non cooperation movement after ‘Chauri Chaura’ incident where non cooperation volunteers got into a violent frenzy and burned a police station along with police men. He also undertook a long fast unto death till all the agitations were suspended. Though the methods of Satyagraha were non violent in general, they are extremely violent on the person following the path itself. Gandhiji ‘cleansed’ himself or punished himself by going on indefinite fasts that sometimes took him to the edge of human pain despite the medical advise. This is an extreme paradox for a movement that is labelled as ‘passive resistence’, is hardly passive. For every indefinite fast brought down the opposition since Gandhiji won back the moral superiority everytime. The final decision of Walt to walk into the alley unarmed, ready to bite the bullet is a great tribute to Gandhiji’s method of facing your enemy armed only with ‘honesty’, integrity and above all the moral superiority. A Satyagrahi, values his life very much, but readily lays it down to win the moral superiority and the greater cause of truth. When Walt found out his medical condition and the need to resolve the problem he caused to Thao’s family by his violent reaction, he faces the moment of truth by his final ‘action’ which is to provoke and by the consequence transfer his life long guilt of having killed ‘unarmed’ young men – an action conceived to poetically highlight the irony of Walt’s life, serving him the atonement and winning the cause in a manner true to any lifelong satyagrahi (Gandhiji’s follower).
The movie overall is not a technical marvel or a brightly mounted spectacle. It is another way of a film maker making spiritual amends for a career in films that comprise of ‘fictional acts of violence’. By that token alone, it deserves to be recorded in the annals of film history and revisited. It is a deeply personal movie and is significantly reflective of why ‘violence’ is in the society today, inspite of having all the buzzwords, democracy, law and order and technology. A film like this in an Indian setting could have been buried under countless ‘Jai Ho’ moments in praise of Gandhiji’s ideals, set in Detroit and USA and devoid of single reference to Gandhiji, it still effectively puts forward a very strong case for using Gandhiism in every aspect of our lives.
Tags: Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino, Mahatma Gandhiji
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Liked the movie anyways VP, but now appreciate it even better. Great perspective….
Quite a different perspective, relating the movie to Gandhism . I took the movie as a man’s redemption though a self sacrifice.
Grand Torino is one wonderful experience though, very humananist and touching.
True uh – It is his redemption through self sacrifice and that is one of the corner stones of Satyagraha too. I wanted to refute the widespread misconception (in the net atleast) about Satyagraha (Gandhi’s way) being passive resistance at best and a coward’s choice to fight injustice. On the contrary it is the most brave option to fight back, for you only trust the humanity and conscience of the oppressor and nothing more. Though Walt doesnt go in trusting the conscience of the gang members, he knows that by accepting their aggression, he has prevented another fragment of next generation continuing a cycle of violence and these were precisely Gandhiji’s words (as I saw in Kamal’s Hey Ram) where he mentions that ‘If I could take all the hatred that is there in the form of a bullet and lay down my life, I will be happy for it’, He felt and he did and so did Walt in the story.
Lovely review of a wonderful movie Jai. For me though it was more like a Man comming to peace with his inner demons. Loved this movie even better than Clint’s earlier “Changeling”.
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Also regarding Korean War, while the US was succesful in it, many see it as a sell out, where the Americans threw away an opportunity they had in their hands.
Changeling was technically far superior and a monumental effort in recreating a distant past and I truly enjoyed it for the performance of Angelina jolie. It was all the more poignant for it was a real incident and to witness such a indefatigable (tireless) will of the mother is emotionally fulfilling too. However this is a much more layered work and thought provoking.
“It is another way of a film maker making spiritual amends for a career in films that comprise of ‘fictional acts of violence’”
Clint had done it twice eariler, in Unforgiven parodying his Gunslinger image, and the twin movies he made on Iwo Jima-Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, which had a strong anti war ethos.
absolutely right Ratnakar…..he started these amends right at the begining with Unforgiven….
I regret not to have seen this film because I cant read your review. Dont want to do injustice to your disclaimer. I was very interested in the way you analyzed the film and of course the Gandhi connection would have made it an interesting read. Wait, let me watch and get back.
Please do watch this one. This one is special because it is very contemporary and it rides on two horses, one being the perspective of naturalized immigrant holding on to values of a distant land in an alien surroundings, the other being that of a local adjusting to his changing surrounding and coming to terms with the past. The beauty is that the local is shown as the ‘old past’ and the new generation endorsed is that of the ‘immigrant’, a subtle hint at the changing demographics of the west. I have just scraped through one aspect of the movie that struck me the most – the futility of violence and the ‘completeness’ of Ahimsa based self sacrifice. There are more to it and I am sure that you would come out with more aspects and perspectives of this wonderful movie for blogging on PFC.
Wonderfully written review man..although i loved the movie, i still felt that it wouldn’t have had even half the impact that it did, had it not been for the presence of clint eastwood…i mean what a fabulous performance..amazing personality..
somewhere I read a report saying that this will be his last appearance in the credits as an actor – I sincerely hope he doesnt do that way If that is true, then seriously a very poignant and memorable way to round off an awesome acting career.
@VPJ,
Gandhism is a stretch mate. esp this ‘2. Confronting your enemies standing on a plank of moral superiority without weapons and thereby invoking guilt and remorse is a better way to win your argument.’
It is my stretch dude. consider this – he has earlier been to their porch beating up one of their guys black and blue. He is back there, this time – he is unarmed, with an aim to provoke them. This is what Gandhi’s followers did – provoke the police yet not responding violently – kinda suicidal. Only difference being that Walt is aware of his illness and the decision is a wee bit easy for him.
yeah suicidal walt, u got it right. but gandhism!!! gaaawd that is one mighty stretch urs or whoevers it is ehehe
Excellent analysis to an excellent movie…It might be about non violence..but I have to say Clint Eastwood can still carry the dirty harry/gunslinger look effortlessly…also very good performance by the virtually unknown support cast…esp the girl & her brother…
sadly overlooked in the Academies…
Great film. Good article. The dvd is out for those who missed it.
I found Gran Torino as one of the weak Eastwood movies…This one was pretentious and boring most of the times…
Thematically hipocratic, I hate it when someone says I did a lot of bad things, am racist, but basically I am good at heart…Its funny to say something like that…. This movie did take the often treaded path of hollywood movies redeeming assholes….Monotonic and non imaginative screenplay was filled with regular cliches of xenophobia, the bad insiders, hard outside soft inside bad mouthing military man, children caring less while neighbours more, punk youngsters, the church hater and the redemption through sacrifice…. I can go on with a few more…it was absolute torture for me…
I dont recommend it to anybody who has seen hollywood dramas involving immigrants, war vets or headstrong patriarchs and racism… Theres nothing new…
Having seen all his movies, since childhood, I stand by Eastwood for his involvement …. This was the one film where I found his work quiet not there…may be the veteran is really getting the hang of natural aging…He, rightly, should stop acting….
Very successful, accessible and light drama… but definitely not Clint at his best either behind or in front of the magic eye….
VPJ…Good work with the Gandhi ideologies ….somehow you do fit them in…
@RamV – I would have to disagree gently. Not everyone who swears of immigrants understands it and does it – so one could fit in with the generic stamping of being a xenophobe, right wing hater etc., and what not, but deep down, some have not given a deeper thought about why they hate. The movie simply tries to show that reasons for being a ‘ultra’ in view points could be not just what is outside, but what is ‘within’.
As to what is new – is what comes out for me. I saw the theme of ‘futility of violence’ and hence the stretch to Gandhiism, while some one might see something else. At the end – movies are just that- dropping a stone in the pond, the waves and reflections are created by us – the audience.For me ultimately the movie scored inspite and because of all the cliches that were in the movie.
@VPJ…me too.,gently ….I really doubt the movie explored anything new that Hollywood has not ventured into…’futility of voilence’ is definitely not a new theme at that..
You can tie down gandhian idelogy to this one…its your wish..I dont interfere..
My qualms is in the hypocritic nature of the basic theme where such films conviniently place characters in a positive light just because they are the protagonist… complexity of characterization is lost… Whatever he does, however hatred he spits..you know he is basically a good guy..there is no unpredictability about these characters..ever…
Almost all of the unwilling war heroes of Hollywood have had the same nightmares ..same haunting faces…for years together..and as they grow old or weak or alone…they are taught to love by the unlikely victim/underdog recpient of hatred… This is formula…not good cinema…
Whether it was fun watching a perenially constipated Clint Eastwood, is the viewers choice… or the zombie ‘Toad’…only saving grace was the actress who played Thao’s sister and the young parishioner… The punks were absolute non-actors… these are some other reasons why could not enjoy it much…
One of the most important contemporary films to come out of Hollywood, and Eastwood….at his best.
I loved this movie. Didn’t particularly read too much into it like a social commentary or anything. It was just an old man kicking some ass. Not a dull moment, a solid story, and Clint growling…well that was fun too.
@VP Jaiganesh,
Read today, (bit late) this article of yours. Film was good as usual as CE has been delivering for many years as a director.
Gandhism can be associated with the film as far as WK’s character faces change of heart and his views toward immigrant neighbours when he actually does interaction with them.
His last actions are based on a well calculated thinking process. He is old, he can not fight successfully weapons based fight with many goons and he might die before he kills everybody. Before that he tries to frighten them with the help of his gun which eventually brings devastating results for his neighbour family.
Ganhism is not about suicide which WK opts in the end. It can be an interesting point if WK’s character knew about Gandhism. He opted that suicidal route as that was the way to send goons to prison for longer time. If he had chosen Gandhism then he would have tried to change hearts of these goons by nonviolent methods and here he tries to punish them. It was a clever move but it had no connection with Gandhism. IMHO!