A Review On
Guru (2007)
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Department of MBA
IMIT, Cuttack
Contents
Title
Page No.
Production
3
Cast and Crew
4
Plot Summary
5-6
Characterization
7-9
Direction
10
Director’s Movie Collection
11
Music
12-13
Movie Review
14-16
A Biographical Sketch
17
Drawbacks of the Movie
18
Conclusion
19
2
Production
Guru was written and directed by Mani Ratnam, while Vijay Krishna Acharya wrote the Hindi dialogues. Shooting for the film took place in Mumbai, Turkey,
Badami and Melkote (both in Karnataka), as well as in Chennai, Pollachi,
Madurai, Chettinad region Tamil Nadu, and Athirapilly in Kerala. Much of the film was shot on the Express Estates, the former home of The New Indian
Express and Dinamani. During one musical number, Aishwarya Rai fell from a bicycle and received bruises on her hands and feet. Filming had to be suspended for a few hours while she received first aid and the number was cut from the film and eventually replaced with “Barso Re”. Several scenes were deleted from the final theatrical version, including a scene in which Sujata first gives birth to a stillborn child and a scene in which Guru becomes angry with Sujata for visiting Manik Dasgupta.
Guru has been described by Ratnam and others involved in the production as a film that is reflective of a man's desire for ambition and success, and how times have changed from the period immediately after the country's independence to the present. Ratnam has described Guru as inspired by stories both past and present. 3
Cast and Crew
Guru stars Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, R. Madhavan, Vidya Balan and
Mithun Chakrabarty in the leading roles. The movie also has Mallika Sherawat in a guest appearance.
The cast of Guru at a glimpse
♦ Abhishek Bachchan as Gurukant Desai: A fabric tycoon from a small village who endeavors to expand his business empire through both legitimate and illegal means.
♦ Aishwarya Rai as Sujata Desai: Gurukant's wife who is initially reluctant to marry him but later on becomes his support and inspiration.
♦ Mithun Chakraborty as Manik Dasgupta: Guru's mentor and the former owner of the newspaper, Swatantra.
♦ Vidya Balan as Meenakshi “Meenu” Saxena (Jalkukdi): A wheelchair-bound girl with multiple sclerosis who has been close to Guru since she was a child. ♦ R. Madhavan as Shyam Saxena: A journalist who investigates Guru's business practices.
♦ Arya Babbar as Jignesh: Guru's brother in law, and the brother of Sujata
♦ Roshan Seth as Judge
♦ Mallika Sherawat as Jhumpa - The Dancer (Guest appearance)
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Plot summary
Beginning in 1951, Guru tells the story of a ruthlessly ambitious villager who moves to Turkey first and Mumbai later with his wife Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) and brother-in-law Jignesh (Arya Babbar) to fulfill his dreams. "Guru" tells the story of Gurukant Desai.
In Mumbai, truth dawns upon Guru that the business world is a closed community ruled by a handful of rich and influential people who don't believe in giving opportunities to new players. Despite barriers, he starts a company called Shakti Trading and climbs the ladder of success at a furious pace.
Manik Dasgupta, Aka Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty), who publishes a newspaper Swatantra, treats Guru as his son. Guru likewise looks to Manik
Dasgupta as a father figure who gives him support during his early struggling days in Bombay. He also develops a strong friendship with Manik Dasgupta's granddaughter, Meenu. Meenu develops multiple sclerosis as she grows up, and becomes confined to a wheelchair in the latter part of the film.
As Gurukant Desai's business grows into one of the largest in India, he ruthlessly pursues success. He smuggles in parts for his polyester mills, illegally creates goods, and manipulates stocks to make a higher profit. But when Manik
Dasgupta learns that Guru's means of success are not always honest, he, along with a reporter of his newspaper, Shyam (Madhavan), decides to expose Guru's increasingly corrupt ways. The stress of his battle with the newspaper causes
Guru to have a stroke, and he is paralyzed on his right side. Meanwhile, Meenu is slowly weakening from her illness, and eventually dies. In the end, Guru is
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brought before a government inquiry into his unethical actions, but he persuades the panel to clear him of most of the charges he is charged with less allegations & lets to run his company, and the film ends with Guru continuing to dream of future, and even greater, success and leading his company the world's biggest company.
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Characterization
In the movie Guru, in a small village of Idhar in Gujarat, the central character
Gurukant Desai, a young ambitious man, dreams of making it big some day.
His father (Rajendra Gupta), the headmaster of the village school, tells him that dreams never come true. But Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) never stops dreaming. After failing at school and earning his pessimistic father’s displeasure he travels to Turkey for work. There he does well, but opts to return home to work for himself. Home, and lacking enough capital to start his own business, he marries his best friend Jignesh’s (Arya Babbar) elder sister for her dowry money.
The lady in question, Sujata (Aishwarya) has a tainted reputation, since she has attempted previously to run-away with a lover. Now, “saved” by Guru, she becomes his loving and devoted wife. Guru embarks in his new business venture in the city with his wife and her brother (who is his partner), and thus starts his journey. Aishwarya Rai plays the role of the strong wife who would
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stand with her husband in all times. This is one of the times when she has proved more than her body. A strong role played with equal strength. The real life romance with Abhishek did Aishwarya a world of good. Playing the devoted wife to the hilt, Aishwarya displays a subtlety that is almost not to be seen in her entire career so far.
Then there is Mithun Chakrabarty, making a comeback to the acting skills
(Mrigaya, Sitara). As newspaperman Manik Dasgupta, he looks old and quite the Bengali Babu (which is what he’s playing) who, with his journalistic second-in-command Shyam Saxena (a thinned-down Madhavan) is for doing things by the book and thus against Guru’s devious ways. Manik Dasgupta is quite the communist foil to Guru’s capitalist dreams. The duo, through their newspaper “The Independent” expose and malign Guru’s methods. Vidya Balan plays Meenu, Manik’s ailing grand-daughter, who marries Shyam.
Guru ranks as one of Mani Ratnam's finest efforts and one of the best to come out of Hindi cinema, but there were “under developed characterizations of
Shyam Saxena and Meenu,” played by R. Madhavan and Vidya Balan respectively. Madhavan's role could have been stronger and Vidya Balan also suffers due to a weak characterization.
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But, more than anyone else, the one who turns the heat on is Abhishek
Bachchan. “Role-of-a-lifetime”, as they call it, could not have been better portrayed. And Abhishek Bachchan fits the role, body and soul. The conviction is evident in his dialogue delivery at each and every stage of the story. The movie faithfully follows Guru’s trials, tribulations and successes, portraying
Guru as a hard-working, industrious and extremely enterprising man. He succeeds by, as he puts it himself, the bribe and the kick philosophy. Where he can get work done through a “kick”, he lets loose, and where people want salaams, he salutes. He gets work done anyway he can, caring not about his many detractors but concentrating instead on forging ahead. Guru truly embodies the visionary, taking risks, and reading needs and markets correctly when other go astray. Abhishek does a sterling job as Guru, ebullient as the young Guru, and growing convincingly into the middle-aged, sport-a-paunch industrialist. 9
Direction
Mani Ratnam does it again and once again the direction is outstanding!! With his vivid dramatization of the Indian business situation of the 1950s-1980s (preliberalization period), through the story of an ordinary entrepreneur, he surely aims at igniting the educated Indian minds towards entrepreneurship. Yes! The movie is not for everyone, but a focused audience!! The movie is not one of the eye-candy commercial movies, but a typical Mani Ratnam product.
Ratnam has been addressing societal changes; Yuva dealt with youth action, and
Dil se dealt with terrorists. He has developed Guru’s story into a case against the government for throttling enterprising entrepreneurs. When Guru berates the government bureaucracy as working only when oiled with money, the audience would nod their head in agreement. Yes, government rules may be archaic and stupid, but they must be amended and made to work not only for people like the devious Guru, but for the common man on the street.
Mani Ratnam, undisputedly one of the best modern story tellers of this country, consistently produces stylishly made movies. Mani has done his job in Guru above the expectation level as a director. The screen shots are composed beautifully and Ratnam handles the emotional aspects of the film with an ease only a master possesses.
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Director’s Movie Collection
Films directed by Mani Ratnam
1980's - Pallavi Anu Pallavi (1983) • Unaru (1985) • Pagal Nilavu (1985) •
Idaya Kovil (1985) • Mouna Raagam (1986) • Nayagan (1987) • Agni
Natchathiram (1988) • Geethanjali (1989)
1990's - Anjali (1990) • Thalapathi (1991) • Roja (1992) • Thiruda Thiruda
(1993) • Bombay (1995) • Iruvar (1997) • Dil Se (1998)
2000's - Alaipayuthey (2000) • Kannathil Muthamittal (2002) • Aayitha Ezhuthu
(2004) • Yuva (2004) • Guru (2007)
Films produced by Mani Ratnam
1980's - Nayagan (1987)
1990's - Roja (1992) • Thiruda Thiruda (1993) • Aasai (1995) • Bombay (1995)
• Indira (1996) • Nerrukku Ner (1997) • Iruvar (1997) • Dil Se (1998)
2000's - Dumm Dumm Dumm (2001) • Five Star (2002) • Kannathil
Muthamittal (2002) • Saathiya (2002) • Aayitha Ezhuthu (2004) • Yuva (2004) •
Thambi (2006) • Guru (2007)
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Music
One of the major strengths of the movie is its Music. The soundtrack was released on November 18, 2006. Guru's music is composed by A. R. Rahman complemented by Gulzar’s lyrics. Like many of Rahman's soundtracks, Guru comes with a variety of songs. The songs vary in their musical style, from the
Turkish inspired “Mayya Mayya” to the folk-ish “Ek Lo Ek Muft” and the love ballad, “Tere Bina”. The song “Tere Bina” is dedicated to the memory of
Pakistani qawwali singer Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan since it was the 10th anniversary of his death. Gulzar also adapted the lyrics of “Ay Hairathe” from the lyrics of Hazrat Amir Khushroo's “Ay Sarbathe Aashiqui”. Rahman personally trained Egyptian singer Maryem Tollar to sing “Mayya”, a song which Rahman wrote while on Hajj in Makkah. After he heard a man near a river who was continually repeating “waya waya waya” (water in Arabic), he told Gulzar to incorporate the word into the tune he had created while touring in
Toronto, Canada. The soundtrack has proved a success, staying at the number one spot thirteen weeks after its release, despite receiving stiff competition from other albums released.
The big AR Rahman magical touch in the movie is complemented by the choreography of Saroj Khan and Brinda (the dance number in Turkey, the song
“Barso re megha” and the song when Ash leaves Abhishek).
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Track listing
1. “Barso Re” (Shreya Ghoshal & Uday Mazumdar) - 5:29
2. “Tere Bina” (A. R. Rahman, Murtuza Khan, Quadir Khan & Chinmayee) 5:09
3. “Ek Lo Ek Muft” (Bappi Lahiri & K. S. Chithra) - 4:58
4. “Mayya” (Maryem Tollar, Chinmayee & Keerthi, Devika Mathur - Dialect
Coach) - 6:02
5. “Ay Hairathe” (Hariharan & Alka Yagnik) - 6:09
6. “Baazi Laga” (Udit Narayan, Madhushree, Shweta & Bhargavi Pillai) - 4:59
7. “Jaage Hain” (K. S. Chithra, A. R. Rahman & Madras Chorale Group) - 6:33
8. “Shauk Hai” (Sowmya Raoh) - 4:32
9. “Dhoom Dhamaka” (Chorus)
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Movie Review
Mani Ratnam's Guru is a decades-spanning drama with a compelling Abhishek
Bachchan as a ruthless Indian business tycoon who refuses to take no for an answer. Guru opened well upon release, gaining momentum as the days went by. The movie was also dubbed in Tamil as Guru and in Telugu as Gurukanth.
The film was released on January 12, 2007, and premièred at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, making it the first Indian film to have a mainstream international premiere in Canada. Although the movie is based on
Dhiru Bhai Ambani’s life even if one has never heard of Dhirubhai Ambani or know little about India and its history, one can still appreciate Guru for its terrific cast and its strong direction and script.
Guru begins in a raw black and white mode where Guru Kant Desai (Abhishek
Bachchan) fails his exam and wants to go out to do a job. His father is a teacher and wants to see his son succeed in his studies, but Guru has no taste for studies. With a negative permission, Guru leaves his village and land up in
Turkey. He works as petrol can filler to a chemical company assistant to
Gambler. When he gets a promotion as sales supervisor in the factory he was working and when the manager asked him to wear a tie, unlike others, he quit the job and decides to start a business in India.
His father has no confidence again and doesn’t help him in any way. Ridden by financial crisis, to start any business he finds an alternative way to get a capital.
To get the rest of the capital he agrees to marry Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) who earlier tried to run away with her lover, but her lover betrayed her. This is the beginning of the rise of Guru.
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The story now revolves around the business side of Guru where the relationship between Sujata is developed nicely in parallel. The eradication of license system, stock exchange manipulation, newspaper story cover-ups and more – the modern battlefield was just under construction. When called up by government for enquiry he gives yet another inspiring speech:
“You frame the rules that make it necessary for me to sometimes kick somebody down, and at other times to salaam somebody else. I wanted to succeed, and I did all of this, and now you ask me why I kicked somebody down, and why I salaamed somebody else?”
Guru has generally received some good reviews. The New York Times said of the film “You might think it would be difficult to fashion an entertaining account of the life of a polyester manufacturer, even a fictitious one. But the
Tamil director Mani Ratnam, known for intelligent political dramas, has done so with “Guru,” an epic paean to can-do spirit and Mumbai capitalism.” The
New York Post gave it three out of four stars, and the Los Angeles Weekly called it the best Hindi film since Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India.
Typical Movie
Mani Ratnam’s movies are generally based on socio-political commentaries and biographies of larger than life people. The story of Guru is also one of them, and obviously takeoff from Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani’s life and times, (better known as Dhirubhai Ambani), irrespective of whatever the disclaimer may say.
Ratnam, like his previous movies - Roja, Iruvar, Bombay etc. - brings yet another semi-biographical ‘Guru’. Ratnam’s movies have a fairly strong storyline, good music, (he gave us A. R. Rehman in Guru) good cinematography, (P. C. Sriram, Rajiv Menon are among the best) stunningly shot dances (can anybody forget Chaiya Chaiya?).
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The movie compactly binds this story of a successful entrepreneur and his simple love life. The climax of the movie lies in the final minutes, in a court hearing scene which includes the 4 min 30 sec speech by Guru (Abhishek
Bachchan). In his speech, Guru summarizes the anomalies of the preliberalization Indian business situation, explains how “License Raj”, Market
Imperfections, Corruption, Excise duties, Import-Export regulations troubled the businessmen and hindered the growth of the economy and nation as a whole. A feast for budding Indian entrepreneurs!!! The execution part of the story seems to be largely inspired from Hollywood’s “Citizen Kane”.
Guru and Awards
Filmfare Awards
♦
Winner - Best Art Direction - Samir Chanda
♦
Winner - Best Background Score - A. R. Rahman
♦
Winner - Best Music - A. R. Rahman
♦
Winner - Best Choreography - Saroj Khan for “Barso Re”
♦
Winner - Best Playback Singer (Female) - Shreya Ghoshal for “Barso Re”
•
Nominated - Best Film - Mani Ratnam
•
Nominated - Best Director - Mani Ratnam
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Nominated - Best Actor - Abhishek Bachchan
•
Nominated - Best Actress - Aishwarya Rai
•
Nominated - Best Supporting Actor - Mithun Chakraborty
•
Nominated - Best Lyrics - Gulzar for “Tere Bina”
•
Nominated - Best Playback Singer (Male) - A. R. Rahman
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A Biographical Sketch
Loosely based on the life of industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, the late founder of the Reliance group of industries, the film Guru became so influential that it even managed a tax exemption in Uttar Pradesh. Like Guru, Ambani also had roots in Gujarat as the son of a schoolteacher, went abroad to work for the gas company Shell, and returned to India to import polyester.
Guru is the story of a man who wants to make money. He has the gumption and the smarts to do it too. How he does what he does, and how he progresses from a village lad to a rich mill-owning tycoon, is the movie. The film is fairly biographical, bears a striking resemblance to Dhirubhai Ambani’s life, and appears almost like a documentary, except for the fact that the director actually takes sides, and chooses to paint the protagonist in heroic and altruistic colors.
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Drawbacks of the movie
Towards the end of the movie when Gurukant Desai vociferously likens himself and his fight for more to Mahatma Gandhi's freedom struggle was ridiculous.
The message at the end can be questioned: as long as public welfare is on the agenda, does it really not matter if you use bribes and cross legal limits?
The lets-get-rich schemes should not be wrapped under the guise of doing
“world-good”. One would be happy championing Guru’s cause if he declared that he did it because that was the way to make money, money he wanted for his family and for himself. That’s not a bad thing to want. However, when Guru runs into trouble with the government for resorting to unethical practices, he justifies it as doing it for the people - “My company benefited but so did my shareholders”. Oh please! No one does it for the share-holders; that is but a side-effect. We know why Guru resorts to bribes. It’s because you cannot be an honest cog in the wheel of a corrupt system. Does Guru really believe he's altruistic? If yes, that’s a bit pompous and hard to believe. If not, then Guru is presenting the
“altruism” theory as a part of his conniving persona, which doesn’t jell well when you’re trying to believe that he’s a do-gooder with a heart of gold.
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Conclusion
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Mani Ratnam’s genius lies in incorporating a cute and impish love into the broader ambit of an emotionless world of shares and supplies. In Guru too he has been able to spin a magical yarn. Guru is a politically charged melodrama.
Mani Ratnam leaves his trademark in the movie with a smoking belly dance by sultry Mallika Sherawat and a wet-sari number for the stunning Aishwarya Rai.
Ratnam's absorbing screenplay ensures that Guru rises above the usual rags to riches story. There is a lot to engage the eye and the ear in Guru. Overall, Guru is well made movie with some imagination and more of inspiration and must say till date first and best tribute to Mr. Dhiru Bhai Ambani – a common man, who dared to dream BIG!
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