| Guna | |
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Official DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | Santhana Bharathi |
| Produced by | Alamelu Subramaniam[1] |
| Written by | Sab John aka John_E |
| Starring | Kamal Haasan Roshini Rekha S. Varalakshmi S.P. Balasubramaniam Janagaraj, Girish Karnad Ajay Rathnam Sharat Saxena |
| Music by | Ilaiyaraaja |
| Cinematography | Venu |
| Editing by | B. Lenin V. T. Vijayan |
| Release date(s) | 1991 |
| Running time | 180 minutes |
| Language | Tamil |
Guna (Tamil: குணா) is a 1991 Tamil drama film starring Kamal Haasan, Roshini, Rekha, S. P. Balasubramaniam, Girish Karnad, Ajay Rathnam, Janagaraj, and Sharat Saxena. It was dubbed into Telugu as Guna. The movie brought out Kamal's best in the acting arena and remains his best movie to date, in terms of acting, according to the Madras Film Institute.
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Guna (Kamal Haasan) is a mentally affected person and receives treatment in a mental asylum. He does not like his father and his mother is a moll and his sister is a prostitute in the house that they live. He assumes a fictitious character named Abirami (also, the name of an Indian goddess) and registers in his mind that she is an angel who is going to marry him on a full-moon day. After coming out of the asylum, he believes the story to be true and believes that his Abirami is somewhere around. Meanwhile, a bunch of hooligans led by Janakaraj force the mentally unstable Guna to rob a temple of Abirami, an Indian goddess.He happens to see a rich girl (Roshini) in that temple, by sheer coincidence. He decides to take her with him to a lonely, damaged house situated at the top of a hill resort called Kodaikanal. Initially, the girl hates him for his weird nature. However, eventually she understands Guna's condition, his deep love and is attracted to him. She accepts his love and marries him, in spite of her terrible physical pain (caused by a broken leg and extreme fever). Meanwhile, the cops and the girl's uncle Sharat Saxena start their search for the missing girl. What ensues is a gut wrenching climax. The film is widely known for its wonderful song, "Kanmani Anbodu" sung by Kamal Haasan and S.Janaki. A line in that song, stands out, striking a chord to the ensuing climax - "Manithar unarndhu kolla ithu manithar Kaathal alla" (translates to : "This love, to be understood by humans, is not human love").
The movie is supposedly inspired from the Pedro Almodovar movie, Atame.
Though the movie received good reviews, but did not became a blockbuster at the box office. Many movie critics believe that people of that generation did not have that maturity to accept an obsessional mental neurotic. Many movie review websites rate it at more than 4.5 out of 5.
The producer of the film, who was an associate of Kamal Haasan, wrote in 2008 that Guna was indeed a profitable venture, a certified hit contradicting reports written about its box office collections 17 years ago.
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