guru

for a long time through the film i was able to forgive abhisheks overdone impression of a gujarati businessman and aishwaryas scenes as a young wife setting up home in mumbai until ratnam bungles it all up at the end with a ham fisted courtroom scene that serves as a obsequious apologia for the corruption of the middle classes. by even going so far as to draw comparisons of the businessman’s law breaking to that of gandhi, he cannot, i think aim any lower. and all this is punctuated by strobing camerawork and rahman going ballistic with the strings. aishwaryas shrinking violet in the background simpers suitably as her beau plays up being a dhoti clad robin hood for the masses.

the completely warped argument is attempted to be made, i think, merely to make sure our hero does not lose center stage. or to provide a justification for the misdemeanors of the multiplex audiences. and even worse is the fact that some of the actors on the fringes of this story, who contribute to it being watchable for a while- like madhavan who turns in a spectacular performance in his three or four scenes as a righteous reporter and eats abhishek up alive on screen; or mithun the upright newspaperman- are allowed to simply disappear. strong characters that could have balanced the blustering end are let go so that then end is made as simplistic as possible. is it only because any scene in which abhishek was with madhavan, madhavan ended up as the real star? is it merely the problems of making a star vehicle? but i think it is worse.

mukul tells me that ‘guru’ is released by adlabs which is owned by reliance. the circle is complete. the entire film ends up being nothing more than a big budget advertisement to justify the corruption of an organization that is known to bend the rules in more ways than one.

its pathetic to watch a film maker stoop so low. to let any sense of ethics be overruled by sops to the lowest common denominator – a reactionary regressive defense of a value system of the middle classes that we are embarrassed of but claim as necessary for survival.

ps – whats with the structureless songs and the photoshop cinematography anyways? awful.