The Social Capitalist

I did watch Guru, the movie (2007) and I did love it too! Here is a 10-point summary of my reaction:

1. Mani Ratnam yet again proves his prowess of mixing a couple of romantic interludes to the main thread of the movie.
2. Stellar performances by Abhishek (end-to-end protagonist), Vidya (a short role, mostly immobile) and the evergreen Mithunda (a role befitting his age). In the concluding moments, AB Junior seems to emulate his dad to the 'T'. This cannot be taken as a blemish on his acting talent, he being a son who grew up watching the most popular actor of his time, as did most other youngsters.
3. Good scriptwork and screenplay. The portrayal of the relationships b/w Abhi-Ash, Abhi-Vidya, Madhavan-Vidya, Abhi-Mithun, Madhavan-Abhi, Ash-Mithun were terrific. Which speaks very well about the casting capability of the director too.
4. Aishwarya can act, and convincingly too! Kudos to Mani again! Worth remembering is the fact that Ash started her career with Mani's Iruvar, which won critical acclaim for many aspects including her acting. I saw a few songs from Iruvar in youtube, and found them to be interesting.
5. Crappy cinematography (Rajiv Menon), maybe due to an attempted 'reality', by wierdly shaking the camera initially (almost like a handycam video), and stabilizing it towards the end, and also, by zooming too much and destroying the frame.
6. Can't blame the patchy editing (Sreekar Prasad) much, because depicting a person's life without losing the tempo, and also giving the deserved time for each decisive moment in the person's life, is a tough job. I got a different version of the movie from my brother back in Kerala, suggesting different edits of the movie in different regions. Mani takes care not to go overboard by crossing the usual 3 hour limit, though longer is trendier in today's Bollywood.
7. Some songs aren't picturised well, and lip-movements are not in tandem with the song. With all the extra zoom and the shakiness, the general opinion I could perceive was that the songs were badly shot. The dances are not proper, yet again attributable to the quest for 'reality'. For instance, in 'Barso Re' they wanted to show Ash as a village girl who obviously hadn't been a Bharatanatyam student!
8. 'Raat ka shauk hai', a new background score added by Rahman after watching a special preview of the movie, seems superb, but its audio not available anywhere yet. The Background music by Rahman is classy.


(video courtesies due)
9. There was a Maddy-Vidya smooch (with this song in the background) which got hyped-up beyond the limits of sensibility by the public reactions - the scene did not seem vulgar at all, but was apt for the situation. It seems Mani has tried to stay out of the controversy in India by axing the scene.
10. After watching the movie, I felt that Ambani was a social capitalist, if ever there was anything like that! (But, yeah, I don't know whether we truly understand the meaning of these two words.) Your viewpoint just after the first half may change 360 degrees by the end of the movie.