Aaj Ki Cinema~~~~~~~

Kunal Khemu is trying to reach out to a wider audience with Madhur Bhandarkar's Traffic Signal. As an actor, he refuses to be typecast. "I am waiting for the right scripts and films. I am a bit selective because I just don't want to burden myself with a lot of work. I am enjoying what I am doing now. Though I am doing one film at a time, I am concentrating completely on my career and having fun," says the young actor.
The actor also visited the streets of Dharavi to experience the life of the boys on the street, before embarking on the role. "Madhur had given me the script with his own interpretation, but I wanted to do it my way. I wanted to experience street life myself," says Kunal.

"I play the role of Silsila, a boy born on the streets of Mumbai who grows up to become a signal manager. He appoints street children on jobs and collects hafta at the end of the week to carry it forward. He is not the typical bhai. He has a softer side to him. I was motivated to meet these children and this role gave me an opportunity to sit and talk to them. It was then that I realised that begging is a job for them. After their lunch they go to work. I wanted to learn the street dialect and their body language, how they communicate with each other, and only by mixing around could I learn all this," reveals Kunal. But were the street children ready to talk to him? "They were starstruck and more than eager to tell me the details of their life," says Kunal. He adds, "I could emotionally connect to those children. There is black humour in the film which is revealed in a subtle way. For us, it may seem to be humorous, but for them it is their way of life. It's a different kind of role and for an actor, such roles don't come everyday. I am thankful to Madhur for giving me such a wonderful chance."

Excited about his first film for children, actor Rahul Bose is spending a lot of time with his 10-year-old niece Alya to prepare for the role. "I used a lot of my father's personality to play the father to two children in Buddhadeb Das Gupta's Kaal Purush. Like my dad, my character is that of a very nurturing father. And now in this children's film, being with Alya has kept me totally in touch with how young minds work," says the actor. "I feel that all young minds are the same. They love anything that challenges the law of nature. Through Alya, I'm fully clued in to young minds. Alya is part of my heart and I certainly will bring my experiences with her into my role," he adds.

The film will be directed by Tamara Nedungadi and will see Rahul as the captain of the Indian cricket team. Discussing the film, Rahul says, "It's a funny, warm and sentimental film. There was a huge tug-of-war between me and the child protagonist, as to who would play the young lead. I lost because he was taller. But I still say I look younger."

All the speculations that Guru is a documentary about an individual who started from zero to become the nation's topmost industrialist are put to rest. As trade analyst Taran Adarsh says, "By no means is Guru a documentary as the media wants us to believe. In fact, I would say that it is a film that is tremendously inspiring and makes you feel all the more confident to encounter challenges and hurdles that may crop up in a journey called life."

Speaking about Mani Ratnam's skills as a director, Taran says, "The director has drawn out emotional moments well. Note the poignant moments in the narrative, Guru's thorny relationship with his father (Rajendra Gupta), his relationship with a newspaper publisher (Mithun Chakraborty), his brother-in-law Jignesh (Arya Babbar) staging a walkout and creating a rift between Guru and his wife Sujata (Aishwarya Rai), the confrontation with the journalist (Madhavan). Even Guru's emotional moment in the hospital when his trusted aide attempts suicide and of course, the finale has been very well directed."

But according to trade analyst Komal Nahta, "Had Ratnam shown Guru's concern for the common man in his journey upwards, the story would have been far more emotional."
Nahta points out, "In spite of Guru being subjected to humiliation, the audience doesn't feel too much for him because somewhere there is a belief that he may have been guilty of irregularities. Guru's lecture before the inquiry commission, explaining why he indulged in irregularities, does not move the audience enough because it looks like an afterthought. Had Guru been shown flouting government rules and regulations with the intention of doing good to lakhs of people who had invested in his company, his lecture would have gone down well with the audience."

Nahta feels that the film oscillates between the present and past at some strategic points and that confuses the viewer. "The first half generates audience interest but the pace slackens post interval," he says. Taran and Nahta maintain that the film will do good business in multiplexes, but the same cannot be said about single screen cinemas. Nahta concludes by saying, "The film should turn out to be an average fare."