A Mediore Ratnam is a Tragic Ratnam
Now much has been said, punched, forced, viewed, counter viewed on the recent released “Guru”. It’s a different fact that now after the Abhiwarya engagement, Guru is no longer being talked about anywhere… ofcourse until the box office reports come out.
But since everyone has written about “Guru”… right from the “I-get-to-write-internet” blogger to the one who is more outrageous than Mr. Taran Adarsh… the ever sleek and hidden Mr. Subhash K. Jha, it wasn’t worth taking the time to write about Guru.
So in short I’ll say this. In Guru, I found Ratnam to be at his mediocre best. Which means he has made an absolutely jolly good movie, by Bollywood standards.
But if we look at “Guru” against a reference of the sum-average quality of all of Ratnam’s movies, then “Guru” is a very average movie. Or perhaps a below average one by Ratnam’s standards.
To begin with Guru has got all the Ratnam goods… if somebody thought it’s Yashraj who started brand packaging their movies… nope… it’s the Mani Ratnam movies… good cinematography, the typical early morning shots, the beautifully choreographed songs shot in a way the minimum lip movement is seen on screen so that it can conveniently and easily be slipped into the dubbed-inother-language versions, the flow, the speed… it’s all there…
But it lacks the typical Ratnam stamp. And I may get a lot of shit for this…
But after watching “Guru”, I think Mani Ratnam is getting lazy. No where do you see the depth of research or the story taking you deep into the trenches like he’s done in many of his prior movies going way back to Nayakan, Roja and others. On the contrary the story just moves along the fluffy, duffy, rosy roads. It’s as if Ratnam or those who control him (impossible?) were to afraid to get to the dark side of Guru.
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Which leads me to ask one fact. WHAT FUCKING VERSION DID THAT MEDIA WATCH THAT WE IN THE U.S. HAVEN’T? HOW THE HELL IS IT BEING SAID IN THE MEDIA THAT THE CHARACTERISATION OF GURU IS GREAT BECAUSE IT HAS MANY ELEMENTS OF GREY?
Hell it’s not even black and white. Guru’s character does not even move an inch from the conveniently and comfortably wrapped fabric of pure whiteness around it…
Abhishek’s performance is being praised. He’s done good. No doubt. But please don’t turn a blind eye to the faults. I know 654 award function organizers are already hammering the name of Abhishek on their Best Actor Trophies… WAIT!!!
In spite of his better than his previous outing performances… check for the same mistakes he’s made last in Yuva. As in the case of Yuva, in Guru too, Abhishek, slips out and at time conveniently slips into Guru’s Gujarati accent. That itself gets big negative points in any acting school of repute.
Big Inconsistency in accents from both the lead actors irritated me no end…
On a positive note, the sensitive side of Ratnam’s story telling is still, mercifully intact. Watch out for the entire sequence where the lead couple visits their old home after a rough time at the shareholders’ meet. Pure Ratnam… written all over it.
But in the end your thoughts move back to Mani Ratnam. You can’t help but wonder if it is the “as usually seen in others” - the start of the natural decay of a brilliant story teller, who once upon a time kept you awake for many a night with his mesmerizing stories.
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January 15th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I can think of one reason Mani Ratnam stayed away from delving into details - political correctness. Had he tried to put, say 10% of what was written in Indian Express, it would have upset a whole bunch of powerful people. And let’s not forget, “Polyester Prince” is not available in world’s largest democracy.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:06 am
shashikant ..and oz … I would like to quote a friend of mine here ..who’s a more paagal fan of manirathnam than me ….
“Woh khuda hai …. film industry mein eklauta aadmi jisko main respect karta hoon.
Guru however is another story. The biggest problem in the film is mani himself… he started out wanting to make a hit… he didn’t wanna make a good film … he wanted a hit film… his last two films were flops (Kannathil and Yuva/AE)
Mani has corrupted himself in this film”
Ahhhhhh finally oz .. u and I agreed together on mani :-)
January 16th, 2007 at 12:51 am
there was nothing MANI in the film… it was like watching a movie with no intensity, no depth, no research, no characterisation. mani got so involved in projecting abhishek that everything including the storyline took a backseat.
January 16th, 2007 at 4:03 am
wow u should have seen the what the public had to stay to an exceptionally fair and objective review by mr Raja Sen on rediff.
it stopped short of demanding a public hanging for Mr.Sen…. no wait … someone did call for his death in some other way..
the link
in case you are interested
http://in.rediff.com/movies/2007/jan/12guru.htm
January 16th, 2007 at 6:28 am
Oz..
Unfortunately, there’s only one view about the film…I dont think it’s being counter-viewed anywhere at all…Mainstream critcs giving rave reviews..is the norm…anything else would have been surprising…but in this case, even sites like NG for example have people hyper ventilating…over what a classic it is…with deep meta physical meanings being attributed to every scene…
The cringing for me started when I saw the first song…the normal southie song…in the start to introduce a heroine…especially if it’s a village belle…there has to always be rain..there has to be a small waterfall kind of a scenario…and she playing in the water…for most of the song…of course with some breath taking scenery around….And what was the sudden beats all about, in the barso re song (and sudden jerk camera movements along with it)…it reminded me of my college days when the theatre guys used to decide to add their own special effects by increasing the volume in the theatre whenever a song used to happen, more so if it’s a song with a lot of beats…god save you then…
no doubt it was a good movie…but the kind of press going on …is unbelievable…they all need a bit of :-t
January 16th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Kamal Hassan once told that he needs to make/act in films which are not up to the cinematic standards one expect out of him but which turn out to be winners in the market, for
that gives him the “moolah” to make a
Hey! Ram or Marudhanayagam!
For once, as a fan I am not angry, Guru was not his best work, but nonetheless there were some very excellent scenes in it which carried Mani’s stamp and even more importantly, this may actually work at the market and bring him the success he very badly needs to make
another Kannathil Muthamittal.
January 17th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
thank you all, for reaffirming my belief that guru will remain a DVD watch for me.. i’d rather spend my 10 bucks watching something i’ll actually be entertained with.. primevil here i come!! :D