Guru (DVD)

Guru (a Hindi language film) was released in January 2007 and is a Mani Ratnam film (produced and directed by him). It stars Abhishek Bachchan as Gurukanth ‘Guru’ Desai, with Aishwarya Rai playing his wife Sujata, Mithun Chakraborty as Manikdas ‘Nanaji’ Gupta, Madhavan as Shyam Saxena and Vidya Balan as Meenakshi ‘Meenu’ Gupta-Saxena.


PLOT SUMMARY

Guru leaves his village and his family to go work in Turkey as ...
...for his sister Sujata’s dowry. Guru agrees to marry Sujata for the dowry (and because he likes her too) and the three of them, Guru, Sujata and her brother travel to Bombay to set up business in the late 50s. Guru wants to make it big by selling polyester but finds it hard getting a start in the business. Everywhere he turns to, people are only interested in big shots and those that can afford to bribe people to get contracts and do business. Along ... more

Guru (a Hindi language film) was released in January 2007 and is a Mani Ratnam film (produced and directed by him). It stars Abhishek Bachchan as Gurukanth ‘Guru’ Desai, with Aishwarya Rai playing his wife Sujata, Mithun Chakraborty as Manikdas ‘Nanaji’ Gupta, Madhavan as Shyam Saxena and Vidya Balan as Meenakshi ‘Meenu’ Gupta-Saxena.

PLOT SUMMARY

Guru leaves his village and his family to go work in Turkey as he feels stifled by his father’s lack of ambition. He does well out in Turkey for a few years but when he is offered promotion he refuses it, wanting not to work for “foreigners” but to make it big on his own in his own country. He returns home to India and his village only to have his school-teacher father sneer at his ambitions. He meets up with his old school friend who has some money saved up for his sister Sujata’s dowry. Guru agrees to marry Sujata for the dowry (and because he likes her too) and the three of them, Guru, Sujata and her brother travel to Bombay to set up business in the late 50s. Guru wants to make it big by selling polyester but finds it hard getting a start in the business. Everywhere he turns to, people are only interested in big shots and those that can afford to bribe people to get contracts and do business. Along the way Guru comes across Manikdas Gupta, affectionately known as ‘Nanaji’ (meaning granddad) who owns a popular newspaper and helps Guru get his voice heard. Nanaji has a daughter with multiple sclerosis who as a young teenager has a crush on Guru. Guru adores her and showers her with affection, although when she grows up she marries her father’s top reporter.

Guru stands up and fights against this culture of rich people only being able to succeed in business and gradually makes his business succeed making many 10s of 1000s of shareholders very rich and very happy. His business goes from strength to strength but this does not make certain people in power happy and his long time friend Nanaji turns against him as he feels he has lost his edge and has turned into the corrupt type that Guru so despised when he was first starting out. Nanaji gets his top reporter, Shyam Saxena on the case to find out how many people he’s bribed and how many laws he’s broken.

The courts issue a summons against Guru and he ends up paralysed. What remains to be seen is will he be able to face the charges against him? Will his business sink? Will he be imprisoned in prison as well as within his paralyzed body? Will his health ever recover?

ANALYSIS

This is definitely a film for dreamers and ambitious people as well as those who support the little man!

Guru’s character is immensely likeable and Abhishek Bachchan played a blinder. I can’t imagine anyone doing the role better. Other Bollywood stars bigger than him might have overdone the role but I think this role is going to win AB some well deserved awards. His chemistry will all of his co stars is fantastic, most especially with Aishwarya Rai (Miss World 1994) who he married in April 2007. Their on screen chemistry was superb and you can truly see they are in love with each other. Her character at the start of the film is a sad young woman who has been dumped by her lover who she was going to run away with and her parents feel no one is going to want to marry her with a tarnished reputation. Guru comes to the rescue and marries her and she falls madly in love with him. Initially when he is leaving for Bombay with her brother she had insisted on staying back in the village but at the last minute, she jumps on the train with them to go off and help them make their fortune. The scenes between the two of them alone are very touching and well written as you see their love develop over the years and her blossom from a very delicate stay at home wife to a strong partner in the business, even down to telling the court she will go to prison too if her husband does as they were in it 50/50! Whilst Aishwarya is already the highest paid Bollywood actress, I’m sure if her husband continues to do roles like this he’ll not be far behind in the top actor stakes. His father Amitach Bachchan is an icon in the industry and was voted Actor of the Millenium ahead of stars such as Sir Lawrence Olivier and Alex Guinness. I definitely think Abhishek’s acting in this film is going to put him at the top with other Bollywood superstars such as Shahrukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan..

Mithun Chakraborty, who was a famous Bollywood hero himself from the late 70s through to the 90s, plays the older respected newspaperman with dignity and grace. You really like this guy for giving Guru his break and they develop a father/son bond which is very believable on screen. Then you can see over the years he gets disillusioned as he sees Guru turning into a rich man who seems to think nothing of bribing people to get his way – behaving in the very same way of people they both despised and stood up against in his paper The Independent. You can totally see why he lets his reporter loose on the story. He plays the caring but fierce newspaper man so credibly that I forgot that he wasn’t really as old as the character he was playing.

Madhavan plays the role of Shyam Saxena very naturally and doesn’t try to outshine the leads at all. The scene where he tells the wheelchair bound daughter of his boss that he wants to marry her is very touching and was played out beautifully by both Madhavan and Vidya Balan. She plays a bubbly character throughout the whole film and comes across as extremely loveable. Again her acting here showed what a good performer she is. I expect to continue to see her playing excellent roles in the future.

What made me chuckle somewhat about this film was that the product which makes Guru so rich and famous is just plain old polyester. It’s like it didn’t exist in India before he started selling it and then everyone’s wearing clothes made from it. Such a simple item to use to make such a hugely successful business empire in the film and it was quite unique so see this type of story. Then again the director of the film Mani Ratnam is quite famous for making quite powerful films with meaning behind them rather than the everyday frivolous Bollywood films that tend to be the norm.

This is essentially a story of a rags to riches village guy who can’t even speak English even though he becomes so rich and powerful and when the charges are read out against Guru in court, his wife tries to interrupt but she is told quite clearly to wait until the charges are fully read out. She then explains that they are simple village folk who don’t understand English and could the charges be read out to them in Hindi, the main language of the country. That was quite a powerful scene and Aishwarya played it so sweetly without raising her voice or sounding cheeky with such a sincere expression in her eyes, I felt like applauding!

The music in the film was quite pleasant, the first few songs really early on in the film, actually within the first 15 minutes really weren’t necessary but the theme music for the film played throughout the film at relevant intervals was really very addictive, the beautifully made song is called Tere Bina (meaning “without you”) and is my favourite in the film. The music was by A R Rahman who is known for producing some excellent music scores for films. There’s quite a fun song and dance routine when Guru and his wife have twin girls with quite amusing lyrics meaning “Not 1 but 2”. All in all I’d say I would want to listen to 3 of the songs from this film over and over again, most especially Tere Bina.

I have to admit that one of my favourite scenes in the film was when Guru is approached outside the courthouse by a shareholder who says he is a mere taxi-driver but because of his shares in the company he was able to give his daughters big weddings.

In a way the experiences of Guru in the film can be described as similar to India’s journey to independence as he dreams of giving his fellow countrymen financial independence by owning shares in a successful company. It’s one of those feel good films which mostly leaves you applauding Guru’s success especially as he turns so many lower class people into middle class people on his journey to the top.

WHERE TO GET IT

Well at the time of writing Amazon doesn’t seem to be selling Guru on DVD directly but you can get it in Amazon marketplace for around £13.50 or from audiorec.co.uk for £15.95. I’m sure the price will come down within a few months or you could try renting it from your usual DVD rental source. Oh and I also spotted it on ebay from around £4 including postage.

The music CD for the film can be purchased at musichouseltd.co.uk got £3.50 at the time of writing.

OVERALL

Overall I’d give Guru a strong 8.5 out of 10. I think there were a couple of misplaced songs at the start of the film which made the start of the film a bit too slow for me, but apart from that I enjoyed the story, the acting was superb from all leads and supporting cast members and the direction was outstanding.

Some of the taglines for the film included: “The life of the most controversial man of the year”, “Villager. Visionary. Winner” and “Think big, think ahead and think fast.” They were all totally apt tags for the film as far as I’m concerned! Watch it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

TRIVIA

Apparently the film is based on the life and works of Indian business tycoon and founder of Reliance Industries Limited, Dhirubhai Ambani (1932 – 2002), whose business at the time of his death had a gross turnover of $15 billion having been started with about $300!

The film has also been released in Tamil and Telegu to cater to the South Indian audience. 

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