Cinema fascinates, provokes, inspires and entertains more powerfully than any other media. Shaaditimes seeks to understand and interpret human relationships in all its nuances.
What better way to explore these intricacies than reviewing films that explore the agonies and ecstasies of human relationships?
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Madras Talkies'
Guru
Produced by: Mani Ratnam & Srinivasan
Directed by: Mani Ratnam
Music by: A.R.Rahman
Featuring: Mithun Chakraborty,
Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, R.Madhavan,
Vidya Balan, Arya Babbar, Manoj Joshi, Darshan Zariwala, Roshan Seth and others.
Well-made film - with negative message
Mani Ratnam gets it right after two gross aberrations -
Dil Se... (1998) and
Yuva (2004). But there is one problem: If in those movies he glorified terrorists and endorsed student violence respectively, here he couriers the 'hook or crook' message. And that makes
Guru as a story objectionable - because Mani is telling the impressionable youth and the
junta that the end does justify the means. And at one point he even compares his hero with Bapu, the way
Rang De Basanti released this month last year attempted to put terrorists on par with freedom fighters! Rid of this angle (which Mani could have junked without condemning his protagonist outright) he is in his element again.
Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) is a man on the move from boy hood - though his failure at academics is a matter of great shame for his father. He takes a humble job in Istanbul (!) through a contact and soon begins to show an unusual head for business. His methods remain a tad objectionable, but the bosses see only the results and decide to promote him. When Guru thus realises his own value, he instead returns to his village in Gujarat.
He has a dream - and the determination to execute it. He marries his friend's sister (Aishwarya Rai) only to get the dowry amount and invest it in business in Mumbai. His rise is meteoric, and his wife's shock at realising how he has used her (her brother spills the beans in a moment of pique) soon turns to admiration. He has an early benefactor in a newspaper baron (Mithun Chakraborty) who admires his flair for demolishing obstacles in his path.
