Con job

Guru depicts the conflict between the privileged few who run the country and wish to throttle competition, and self-made grassroots people who refuse to be cowed down

Partha Chatterjee Delhi

MANI Ratnam’s Guru is a much hyped, much awaited film. It is allegedly based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of the richest group of industries in India.

Gurukant Desai, the protagonist of Ratnam’s film, is a restless, hugely ambitious businessman with a heart; in short a contradiction in terms. Abhishek Bachchan plays him with drive but not conviction. He is a marionette in his director’s hands, likewise Aishwarya Rai is playing his devoted wife.

Guru is about the conflict between the privileged few who run the country and wish to throttle all competition, especially from self- made men of the soil who refuse to be cowed down. The central idea is an attractive one but its cinematic expression, to say the least, is problematic. It looks too much like a promo for Dhirubhai Ambani who used extremely questionable means to get to where he did in record time. Many youngsters, particularly those in a tearing hurry to join the upper crust, consider him a role model.

India, a country only sixty years old, has been driven by caste politics fostered by the microscopic minority in power. The underprivileged, instead of helping each other to better their own lot, are busy imitating the oppressor. They, too, wish to savour the fruits of power without rendering service. But Ratnam’s Gurukant is an endearing idealist with a few kinks.

He is, we are made to believe, a devoted family man, a loyal friend, and a spokesman of the toiling, anonymous millions. He is also a terrific romantic. Ratnam has decided from the outset to make Guru a character larger than life; a product to be advertised and sold at the highest profit possible.

His cinematic language is that of the advertising film. Every frame looks glossy and attractive, including those of Bombay chawls. Halfway through, one has the creepy sensation of watching a feature length ad film.

A.R. Rahman’s music, in Dolby sound, is catchy but easily forgettable. Samir Chanda’s meticulous art direction, including the recreation of a tram track with an old red tram running on it, is ultimately counterproductive.

Guru’s loyalty towards a cranky, old, honest newspaper editor and his dying granddaughter, despite being sorely tested, is supposed to show the magnanimous side of his character. His surviving a paralytic stroke, after being hounded by shareholders and the government alike, and facing the Supreme Court as a God-like figure is a ploy that fails, high- voltage histrionics notwithstanding. Roshan Seth does a brilliant cameo as the Chief Justice, and is the only character in the film who rings true.

Mani Ratnam is supposed to be the only mainstream film maker concerned with social issues. His films, however, tell a different story. Roja, was a highly falsified but an attractive version of terrorism is Kashmir; Dil Se, purportedly a glimpse into the mind of a terrorist; Bombay, a populist take on communalism; Yuva, on disgruntled misunderstood youth; and now Guru, a heady mix of demagogy and idealism that reeks of corporate sponsorship. Like many of his earlier films, Guru is edited sharply courtesy Sreekar Prasad. It moves briskly from scene to scene, sequence to sequence, and is aided by the staging which relies on constant movement. But this very quality, while investing the film with pace, robs it of repose. The viewer does not get time to think of the happenings on screen. It is a visual strategy common to the ad film: of a product having to be sold by hook or by crook.

The special effects to generate mammoth crowds are of international quality and reveal the scope of electronic intervention in cinema, whereby a few hundred extras can be replicated convincingly to fill a large stadium.

The screenplay by Mani Ratnam, to use a euphemism, is weak. And Gulzar’s dialogue and songs have a mass appeal while being ‘in good taste’.

The emergence of a steam engine with the right kind of bogeys in the early morning light is a pleasure. Similarly, are many moments seen in isolation.

Ratnam has not really moved away from the world of the Matunga gangster Vardachari Mudaliar which he created in Nayakan. He still uses the politics of the gangster film, more often than not, inappropriately making other kinds of films.

A bright, 15- year- old girl, said after the screening, that Guru was a ‘con’ job.