Mahatma and the Mad Boy

*10.0

Status

Released

Production

Merchant Ivory Productions

Aired

1974-03-01

Mahatma and the Mad Boy

In the time frame of a single day (from dawn to dust), the film records the wanderings of an Indian youth who sleeps on the beach, holds conversations with a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, and scavenges for food with his monkey. By afternoon, a little ceremony is held by well-to-do Gandhi-ites, at which a speaker delivers a sermon on "godly love"; but when the boy comes too close, he is told to move on by a guard, one of a series of exclusions of this onlooker-outcast.