Guru

A great story that affects the mystical life of the human mind from an idea that has conjoined the social condition of the modern age and affects an existential life and the existing life of the people The making of the film was reminiscent of everyone's attention , Guru ... that was a movie. The valley of the blind is beautiful and picturesque ... The question and the answer is a painting of how cruel religious thinking can be blind.

Guru is one and only Malayalam film submitted by India for the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film. Set in the backdrop of a village whose residents are from different communities , the film tells the story of birth,spread and aftermath of communal violence and how a spark is blown up into a huge fire by elements having vested interests. Also it is a real eye opener for someone who blindly follows violent ideologies.

Reghuraman is a typical common young man who is enraged by the attack on his father by some communal elements in an otherwise peaceful village. The violence spreads across the state and he had to flee and take refuge in an ashram which is run by a spiritual leader. Though he had to live in a false identity in the ashram , he happens to come across some residents of the same ashram who are hurt by the communal violence like him and they decide to take revenge for their suffering. But before his wish materializes , he is shown how grave a sin he is going to commit by one of the spiritual leaders of the Ashram. In the process he made to undergo visions in which he reaches an unknown land where he is the only person who has eyesight. Everyone else is blind and they live in a virtual world where they believe that there is no such thing as vision and it is a false story made by evil forces to lure the human beings. He is looked upon as evil when he tries to convey the idea of eyesight to the blind inhabitants of the valley. He undergoes many sufferings before he comes back to reality where he realizes the real plight of GURU(master or spiritual leader) in a world of blind people(blind with communal hatred) and decides to keep aloof from the path of violence.

Guru can be considered as one of the best shot Malayalam movies as well as technically sound one.A notable feature is the background score by Ilayaraja. The use of actual Hollywood sets for filming the virtual world is one of the highlights of the film.

The movie deals with the contemporary political situation which uses religion as a weapon for their political stability. The film shows the redeem of a man. This was the first film from mollywood to get oscar nomination

The narrative of 'Guru' is way ahead of it's time and it's well put together overall, given that it was shot with a modest budget of 3 crore INR (less than half a million USD). The director's attempt to capture human emotions and thought in a surreal realm is revolutionary, since fantasy isn't a popular genre in Malayali films.

In Guru, Rajiv Anchal explores the human psyche and challenges social constructs (such as religious animosity in this case) with a fresh pair of eyes. He also implicitly makes the viewer question his/her preconceived ideas about society and 'self'. Also, it was a pleasant surprise to find out that the movie was inspired by The Country of the Blind by H. G. Wells and found the parallels between the two stories interesting.

One wonders how extravagantly this movie could have been made if the team had a bigger budget, or, if it was shot by a Hollywood production house.

It's one of those movies that stills reminds us that Mohanlal is a truly talented actor, even though ever since 'Narasimham' (2000) he has been doing primarily style-over-substance kind of films. Hopefully he does at least one movie as good as 'Guru' in the coming years and give the movie goers a nostalgic trip back to his 'good-old-days'.

A movie that still holds importance in our current world where people are killed for religious misconceptions. The metaphorical descriptions of our superstitions and ignorance showed in this movie are so excellent that it offers an insight into general human imbecility. The movie is severely underrated in spite of Mohanlal sir's incomparable acting performance.