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.
