Guru (1997 film)

kuru

Poster
Directed by Rajiv Anchal
Written by CG Rajendra Babu
Rajiv Anchal (Story)
Starring Mohanlal
Suresh Gopi
Sithara
Kaveri
Murali
Music by Ilaiyaraaja
Cinematography S. Kumar
Production
company
Janasammathi Creations Pvt Ltd.
Release dates
  • 12 September 1997
Country India
Language Malayalam

Guru (literally "the religious teacher and spiritual guide") is a 1997 Indian Malayalam-language hallucination film written by CG Rajendra Babu and directed by Rajiv Anchal. Prominent Malayalam actor Mohanlal played the lead role in the film. Nedumudi Venu, Srinivasan, Suresh Gopi, Sithara, Kaveri Muralidharan and Sreelakshmi star in supporting roles.

The film was selected as India's official entry to the Oscars to be considered for nomination in the Best Foreign Film category.[1] It failed to get the nomination and was discarded by the jury.

The music was scored by the famous south Indian composer Ilaiyaraaja. The symphonic background score was conducted by Ilaiyaraaja using the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, which marked the first time in Indian cinema, the background score was conducted outside the country.

Plot

Guru is a fantasy film. It is highly symbolic and makes a statement on terrorism and the evils of the world.

The story starts in small peaceful village in India. There is peace between the Hindus and the Muslims that live there. They all get along like family. Raghurāman (Mohanlal) is the son of the local Hindu temple's priest. When an ambitious politician's (NF Varghese) goons disguised as Muslims cause trouble at the local temple, tensions break out between the two communities. The tensions soon flame into a religious riot. Muslims and Hindus began killing each other. Raghurāman joins Hindu gang which is about to attack a group of Muslims who have taken refuge in a guru's asram (a place where a holy guru lived and worked). But at a point Raghurāman has an out of the world experience in the asram.

He is now in the country of the blind. He is taken to a world where everyone is blind and where people do not believe in the sense of sight. Raghurāman saves a man from death and befriends him. He is astonished by the perfect activities of the citizens. They actually believe it as a sin to think that there is a thing called sight. Their children are taught that there is no world of sight. When Raghurāman tries to tell them that there is a world of sight and that he can see, they don't believe him. They consider him evil because he can do things that they can't.

Raghurāman eats a common fruit that they have in that land. He finds out the hard way that this tasty addictive fruit is the cause of their blindness. Now that he is blind and helpless the kings soldiers, whom he had evaded before because of his sight, captures him. The king (Suresh Gopi) sentences him to death by drinking the extract from the seeds of the same fruit that made him blind. This form of punishment has never been given to anyone before. The seeds of the addictive fruit that Reghuraman eats is considered to be fatally poisonous. After the soldiers carry out the sentence he is left to die. But instead he sees that his blindness is cured by the seeds extract.

He then spreads the message throughout the kingdom. Some people take the seeds and experience sight. The people with sight try to take revenge on the people without sight. Raghurāman stops this with a wonderful speech. In the end everyone including the king is convinced to take the fruit. He is brought back into the normal world by the Guru's spirit. Raghurāman realizes that his thirst for revenge is a sin. He stops the riot gang's plan to kill the Muslims by blasting a bomb.

Cast

Sound Track

The films soundtrack contains 6 songs, all composed by Ilaiyaraaja and Lyrics by S. Ramesan Nair.

# Title Singer(s)
1 "Aruna Kirana Deepam" Dr. K. J. Yesudas
2 "Deva Sangeetham" Dr. K. J. Yesudas
3 "Deva Sangeetham" Dr. K. J. Yesudas, Radhika Thilak
4 "Guru Charanam" G. Venugopal and Chorus
5 "Minnaram Manathe" Sujatha Mohan
6 "Thathaaram" M. G. Sreekumar

Awards

Screen Videocon Awards (South)[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Guru goes in search of the Oscar". The Hindu. cscsarchive.org. November 2, 1997. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
  2. ↑ "And the Winners Are...". Screen India. April 17, 1998. Retrieved April 10, 2011.

External links