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RRR
A movie titled simply "RRR" is perhaps the greatest achievement in the entire Indian cinema landscape. You are probably familiar with the term "Bollywood". There is a misunderstanding in the world that Bollywood simply means Indian cinema. It's not necessarily true. Bollywood is Indian cinema from the center of India. And Bollywood movies all shot in the Hindi language. India has a dozen or so states and a dozen or so languages. Each state and even each little region of those states have different languages and dialects. RRR was made in the state called Andra Pradesh ( Telugu: ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్ ) where people speak Telugu ( Telugu: తెలుగు ). And the movie is a part of Tollywood, not Bollywood. Though quite frankly, even that is not true, since the director of the film Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli ( Telugu: కోడూరి శ్రీశైల శ్రీ రాజమౌళి ) known as simply S. S. Rajamouli ( Telugu: ఎస్. ఎస్. రాజమౌళి ) treated this film as an all Indian movie, using actors from different states of India, and dubbing the film into multiple Indian languages. Making the film Indian in general, not simply Tollywood.
Rajamouli has a nearly god status in India. Every one of the films I saw from him ( I didn't see all of them yet ) are good films. Though as you might expect from Indian cinema, they are all over the top action movies. Watching RRR recently I noticed that Rajamouli actively employs some Spielbergian techniques. Such as shooting through objects, shooting through mirrors and staging complex long shots which have a lot of layers of movement. But on the whole, his style resembles more John Woo than Spielberg. The action is so intense and so over the top that it's at times comical. But it is awesome to look at.
The story of RRR revolves around a friendship of two very tough guys played by Ram Charan ( Telugu: రాం చరణ్ ) and N. T. Rama Rao Jr. known simply as NTR (Telugu: ఎన్.టి.ఆర్ ) and is both about a rescue of a little girl that was kidnapped by the British and about a revolution against the British. The film's title "Rise, Roar Revolt" was not there from the beginning. It was just simply a project of Rajamouli, Ram and Rao. Therefor RRR. But later they decided to find something else for the abbreviation to mean.
The film is set in the early 20st century when India was occupied by the British. And is partly inspired by true events. Though only a little bit, because the stuff you see in the movie is so overly epic that it would not be physically possible to do. And the two heroes of the story, even though based on real people, actually never met in real life.
There is a lot of controversy about how this movie is promoting a kind of near-terroristic mindset. Being currently in a country which is at war with a huge terrorists organization, watching this movie made me think a lot about how this movie handles its message. In the war you hear a lot of stories from both sides of the conflict about how the other side is evil and therefor justified to be killed. RRR could have been very not subtle about it, showing all the British as some kind of evil racist people. Which is does for the most part. But there is a very interesting inclusion of a character named Jenny played by Olivia Morris. Jenny is a likable British character that even falls in love with on of the Indian heroes. There is an attack on a British party in the middle of the movie, where we see how the Indian side of the fight makes sure to protect Jenny from the mayhem. Which is a very interesting thing to put there. Meaning Rajamouli was thoughtful about the message. Still though, I see where the controversy comes from. The attitude of the oppressed group in the movie is not to reach a sort of equilibrium, but rather to brutally murder the oppressor. Which is not a civilized way to solve problems. But which is a way to get proper action scenes.
There was a deleted scene in Avatar, where Na'vi troops attack a base of Humans. It was cut out from the movie, probably because that would look too much like a terrorist attack. In Avatar the Na'vi are being shown significantly under-powered compared to the tech of the oppressor. Which makes the fight in the end of the film feel earned and righteous. In RRR our main heroes are basically supermen hiding their power from the British until one day they had enough. With that I can see why some people may look at RRR as a kind of terrorism propaganda movie.
You know how Indian movies have sudden music parts in them. Making everything a kind of half action half musical. This genre of film is called "masala" based on a spice which is a mixture of many spices. Masala films are film where a lot of genres are mixed into one. And this is the most popular genre in India. RRR is also a Masala film. It has action, obviously. But it also has song and dance scenes. It has a romantic comedy subplot. It has melodramatic scenes in it. But while in many other movies the different genres make very little sense together, RRR's writing makes everything work even for the western audience.
For example the famous Nattu Nattu song from RRR which won an Oscar for the best song. It is a very silly dance number, yes. But it is happening on a ball, to which the main characters were invited. So it is a place where people dance. And it is also a fight scene in a way. Because the main characters decided to challenge the British to a dance that is very physically demanding. More than that. The scene is so full of energy that it is not just making sense. It's pure awesome.
The music in the movie, composed by Koduri Marakathamani Keeravaani ( Telugu: కోడూరి మరకతమణి కీరవాణి ) known as simply M. M. Keeravani ( Telugu: ఎం. ఎం. కీరవాణి ), is amazing. It has a lot of vocal elements that I rarely heard anywhere else. It's not like beat boxing, it's more like pronouncing weird short words very fast that makes for a very intense sounding rhythm. But even the other parts of the soundtrack are equally as amazing. I think his music for Baahubali ( Telugu: బాహుబలి ) movies is a bit better. It sounds more like something I would want to listen to often. But RRR's music is awesome.
Visual Effects-vise the movie might look a bit odd to people that are used to seeing Marvel movies. In Hollywood terms RRR is a low budget film. But it is one of the most expensive productions in India. And therefor the movie is a huge step up from the effects that you can see in the previous Rajamouli film Baahubali. To be quite frank, there are maybe only 3 or so effects shots in the movie that look fake to me. And even those 3 are amazingly done. One more interesting thing about the effects in the movie, is that a large chunk of them was done in Blender. And the filmmakers even wrote an article about it which was published on Blender's website.
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