The South Asian Film Monthly from SAAFA

FILM REVIEW

Guru

Acclaimed Indian director Mani Ratnam brings us the story of GURU, an inspiring rags to riches story about a young man from a small village with big dreams. Although the film begins with a disclaimer about not being based on real characters, it is widely believed to be inspired from the real life story of industrialist Dhirubai Ambani – a wealthy Indian textile tycoon and founder of Reliance Industries.

Born to a local headmaster in a small village in Gujarat, India, GURU (Abhishek Bachchan) or GURUKANT DESAI decides to go to Turkey to pursue his career opportunities. After a few years, he returns to his native land determined to start his own business and build the largest polyester textile company in India. Back home he is faced with many challenges and he soon realizes that the business world is a closed community favoring only the rich and the influential. Despite such obstacles, through his guile and “never say die” spirit he establishes Shakti Corporation and manages to climb the ladder at a furious pace.

Guru’s convictions lie in the absolute self-belief that nothing is impossible and all hurdles can be conquered, in effect the quintessential capitalist. In fact he lives life by the principle that “if people are talking negative things about you, you must be doing something right.” As success sails in so do the critics especially his former mentor the newspaper publisher Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty) who accuses him of corruption and tax evasions. The battle between the two leads to factory shutdowns and government enquiries and the film climaxes with Guru’s rousing speech defending his actions before a government board.

The strongest suit of the movie is its performances and its sense of realism, in that the current economic success being enjoyed by the sub continent, makes this a topical film for a global audience. The film is anchored by Abhishek Bachchan’s superb acting. Abhishek ably uses his lanky charm to come across as an ambitious businessman with a good heart whose politics are on the side of the common man. Given the dream role of a lifetime, he does not disappoint and delivers the best performance of his young career.

The striking Aishwarya Rai plays GURU’s wife Sujatha. Also known as India’s “Brangelina”, Abhishek and Aishwarya’s unmistakable chemistry sizzles on the screen. Ash looks stunning and plays the pragmatic wife with wonderful reserve. Mithun Chakraborthy (Nanaji ) in his greatest comeback role is excellent and delivers one of his best performances since Agneepath. The actor takes precedence over the star in this case and it took a Mani Ratnam to achieve that.

Rajiv Menon’s cinematography is delicious and A.R. Rehman’s music is melodious although some songs felt forced into the story (“ek lo ek muft” song soon after birth of twins seems unnecessary). Of the vast supporting cast, Roshan Seth makes a presence even with a ten minute role while the character of Vidya Balan ( Meenu) has not been well defined and seems irrelevant. Even her romance with the reporter Shyam ( Madhavan) is not developed well.

In the end GURU is a refreshing departure from the usual romance or action masala films churned by Bollywood and Mani Ratnam does a competent job in narrating a fresh subject and storyline.

Rating: Three and a half stars

Praveen Nischol is the CEO of AdLabs- the largest production house in India funded by Reliance Industries. Their new releases include some of the year’s biggest films like Umrao Jaan, Baabul and Guru.

In your role as CEO of ADLABS, what changes do you envision in the Indian movie landscape over the next 5 years.

We are going to see an increase in the production of films, which is driven by the growth of multiplexes. Multiplexes drive up the demand for software and once that grows there is going to be growth in the revenue. People are also going to spend more since the economy is doing well and people have the spending power. What is going to happen with that is the top tier production companies will have more money to spend which will increase the overall quality. We have seen last year films like Krishh and Dhoom 2 with the action and special effects that we have not seen before in the Indian scene. This ensures that you come somewhere in the international bracket. Of course what this will also require is a change in the subject and style of filmmaking from India that will ultimately result in better films.

What is your personal vision for ADLABS?

ADLABS has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years and has come into every field of entertainment that is almost similar to the studio system of the West. There is growth everywhere in the company. There is also a sense of corporatization and a large inventory of films of all kinds. Our next step would be to enhance our presence in the international arena, which we have initiated by entering into a partnership with Hyde Park, that being Ashok Amritraj’s company (in Hollywood). In fact the first film is already completed with Hyde Park, it is called Asylum and the second one is about to start. When we get into a new area (International) it is better to go with known people and Ashok is very well known and has been extremely successful and is a very intelligent man. So we have started off our international presence with a co-production deal.

When we look at your roster of films (ADLABS) they range from typical Bollywood to Arthouse, what determines your choice of films?

It is all about commercial viability. An offbeat film by Prakash Jha (Apharan) had a commercially viable actor like Ajay Devgan and Prakash did a wonderful job of controlling the budgets. So he was going into Arthouse but with commercial appeal . Hence some sort of viability of the commercial kind is a very major factor. Once that hurdle is crossed then one also considers the passion of the filmmaker, because films are not just about what you make, they are also about how you make them.

With corporates entering the Indian film industry what changes do you see in the industry?

It has become a more disciplined environment and like anything it has its advantages and disadvantages. What is essential and what we must be very careful about is that in the corporate setting we must not loose the individual passion of filmmaking, because each film is a one person’s passion and then he gets a team, which comes along with that passion. Besides that corporates can create great efficiencies by making things more organized. When you are talking corporates, basically they are creating the studio system of yesteryears, which actually broke up because of the star system cause we did have the Bombay Talkies, etc, in the past. But in the current scenario the stars still make the chunk of earnings, for the corporates to sustain themselves they will have to start to create their own stars.

So what can ADLABS provide if a Warner Bros walked up to your office and said they wanted to shoot a film in Mumbai and Rajasthan, and that ADLABS should take it from here, in effect almost sublet that production piece to ADLABS?

Again the decision (whether to co produce) will be based on the question of viability. Viability is different in the Hollywood scenario. It has to be kept in mind that we ourselves, at times are outsourcing our line producing work, so it could be a scenario of we taking on the Indian spend, in case of a large star cast (Hollywood) film, or it could be that we take on the work at the behest of the studio in case of a smaller film.

So going beyond the Indian diaspora can we expect a global mainstream film, let’s say a James Bond, to be released globally by ADLABS?

Absolutely!! In fact the step we have taken with Hyde Park would lead towards that. The whole idea is about expansion and continued growth in all directions.

'Black Friday’ – a film based on Bombay Blasts released on February 9

Previously banned in India, Black Friday based on the 1993 Bombay Blasts was released internationally on Feb 9th. Based on S. Hussain Zaidi’s book on the same subject, the film probes into the heart of the conspiracy behind the Bombay blasts and the massive follow-up investigation by giving detailed account of planning, execution and back-end operations of the same. Directed by Anurag Kashyap, the film was first screened at the Locarno Film Festival in 2004. It was awarded the Grand Jury prize at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles in 2005.

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