Good movies are generally categorized as "Paisa Vasool" types or "fundoo" types. If we set the right expectations, we can sit back and enjoy the flick and not be disappointed. Then there are films like "Guru", where you walk into the cinema expecting to see an equivalent of "A Beautiful Mind" or "Cindrella Man". Not for nothing. The plot is a Movie Director's delight, lifting, inspirational, dark and redeeming by turns. All shades of a great growth story epitomised by real life examples. There is no stereotypical black and white here. Every character has a different shade of grey. To top it the director is the finest story teller in the Indian film industry. How does he treat it?
In the earlier part of the movie he spends some time building GuruKant's character. Impressive start. Everything else is fast forward, except the songs that takes up gruelling 30 minutes of story telling time. When you are treating a subject as real life as this, we don't expect Aishwarya's character to do an introductory jig and then back it up with another one when she has just delivered twin girls. To accommodate all the dancing and merriment, imagine what we missed. The blow by blow account, ostensibly inspired by the wealth creator of our times, who used the system for what ever it was worth and created a business model in itself. Like i said, inspirational, redeeming, dark and vainglorious. Mani Ratnam has sacrificed good film making for 30 minutes of Jhatka Matkas. Which brings me to the question. Why do Indian Film makers think that rooted stories told as is, will not register with the masses? If Bollywood makes a movie on Gandhi, will we still have Mohandas sing songs with Ba? Our film industry trivializes the most appealing of stories and makes it nothing more than Tamasha. The movie can be summarized thus,
Young Gurukant, goes to turkey, shows promise (better part of the movie)
-----Song-------
Aishwarya Rai Intro
-----Song-----
Marriage with Aishwarya, opens factory
-----Song-----
Kids, goes public
-----Song-----
Tussle with his mentor (Mithun - based on RPG??), Guru's struggle period
---Song----
Paralysis & Trial by commission
---Song---
The come back (we are not shown how this happens)
THE END.
From Mani Ratnam, we had not expected this.
Positives: Watch the movie for Abhishek Bachchan. I never thought he had anything going for him other than his father. But hold it, this guy can deliver and deliver with panache. The mannerisms he uses, the accent and the intensity with which he plays the character is amazing. Mithun is competent. Aishwarya is wasted. Maddy and Vidya do not have much to do anyway.
Music: The villain of the piece. Used in-appropriately. A typical AR Rahman dish-out. But wait, there is one exceptional song "Barso Re". "Yammo Yammo" is catchy. Why did Abhishek have to lip sync to AR Rahman's voice in "Dam mast"? Some questions will remain unanswered in Bollywood.
Moral: Slick Editing, pretty faces and 6 songs does not a good film make.
In the earlier part of the movie he spends some time building GuruKant's character. Impressive start. Everything else is fast forward, except the songs that takes up gruelling 30 minutes of story telling time. When you are treating a subject as real life as this, we don't expect Aishwarya's character to do an introductory jig and then back it up with another one when she has just delivered twin girls. To accommodate all the dancing and merriment, imagine what we missed. The blow by blow account, ostensibly inspired by the wealth creator of our times, who used the system for what ever it was worth and created a business model in itself. Like i said, inspirational, redeeming, dark and vainglorious. Mani Ratnam has sacrificed good film making for 30 minutes of Jhatka Matkas. Which brings me to the question. Why do Indian Film makers think that rooted stories told as is, will not register with the masses? If Bollywood makes a movie on Gandhi, will we still have Mohandas sing songs with Ba? Our film industry trivializes the most appealing of stories and makes it nothing more than Tamasha. The movie can be summarized thus,
Young Gurukant, goes to turkey, shows promise (better part of the movie)
-----Song-------
Aishwarya Rai Intro
-----Song-----
Marriage with Aishwarya, opens factory
-----Song-----
Kids, goes public
-----Song-----
Tussle with his mentor (Mithun - based on RPG??), Guru's struggle period
---Song----
Paralysis & Trial by commission
---Song---
The come back (we are not shown how this happens)
THE END.
From Mani Ratnam, we had not expected this.
Positives: Watch the movie for Abhishek Bachchan. I never thought he had anything going for him other than his father. But hold it, this guy can deliver and deliver with panache. The mannerisms he uses, the accent and the intensity with which he plays the character is amazing. Mithun is competent. Aishwarya is wasted. Maddy and Vidya do not have much to do anyway.
Music: The villain of the piece. Used in-appropriately. A typical AR Rahman dish-out. But wait, there is one exceptional song "Barso Re". "Yammo Yammo" is catchy. Why did Abhishek have to lip sync to AR Rahman's voice in "Dam mast"? Some questions will remain unanswered in Bollywood.
Moral: Slick Editing, pretty faces and 6 songs does not a good film make.
.jpg)
2 comments:
I am not a film critic .... But..I write from my experience of watching flicks...Guru..is not a great flick...not the entertaining type..(with the usual song-dance and drama and not the forget the the usual exposure by the lead actoress ...which has the front benchers leching..well even i leach at times)..But i can say ..this film is different and sets u thinking...Thinking about capitalism and the virtues of making money...This film talks about the need to make WEALTH ... There may be people who don;t like the idea of making money ...but that's the way the world is ...full of people with differeent (and their own) opinions on matters... And this film glorifies (Mani Ratnam will find the word too strong for his liking) the quest of a man to make money...
As an addendum to the last comment, you can see a trend in the Indian Cinema these days. After the fathers retired, or attained "Nirvana", the sons and daughters of the same Nirvana attained actors are coming to the forefront and becoming "Super Sardom." Is it because of lack of talents in India?, I don't think so. From Chemburwalla Kapoors to Rajesh Khanna, to Sivaji Ganesan to Amtabh Bachen, this is what going on in Indian Cinema circles for the last few years. Pushing and promoting sons and daughters to the forefront by their own parents. A kind of cronism, a kin d of nepostism where true talens are discouraged and people with same or less talents are promoted by their own parents!! Guru confirms that notion.
During the 80's and 90's indian cinema could not grow beyond a triangular love theme involving lover, the loved and the villain. Later that turned out to be the Robber(Dhakko)-theme started from Sholey(Amjad Khan). And now, the stories started to focus around geographical locations in and around Venice, Singapore and bits and peaces of European and North American cities, as if they have messed up all Indian cities, waterfalls, parks and beautiful lakes and valleys beyond repair. Guru confirms that perception..
Great Indian Cinemas like Mother India or Patheer Panchali no more appeal to or thrill the general public. They want to see the impossible happening on the screen(not in reality)and stories about social injustices or stories about the common men's plight today in Indian society are all foreign to them. They want to see the heroes driving big cars and wearing Armani suits that cost anyting above 3000 dollars, all way beyond an average Indian's affordability. A famous american series call "Dallas" could change the way the Russians think and perceive about America and the rest of the world. The truth of the matter is that we somehow would like to live in a dream world and cinemas like Dallas and Guru certainly help us achieve that.
If Indian cinema ever wants to get ahead on the world scene, it has to invent challenging themes and give due opportunities to the really deserving ones who do not become actors through their bloodlines, but due to their talents and talents alone, and in India's case there is no shortage of talents and, finally, stop imitating Bill Gates, Sam Walton, and India's infosys chief, they are a unique kind of visionaries in their own class. When someone imitages them, it is truly nauseating.
Post a Comment