How SS Rajamouli’s RRR swept box-offices this year and bewitched audiences across the globe

But what has made every single stakeholder in the Indian movie ecosystem, from producers to purveyors of on-fleek trends, is the RRR phenomenon, which started out its theatrical journey in March, and has continued its triumphal march through the globe, shoving aside other desi offerings, and managing to bewitch both first-time viewers and hard-nosed film critics. The RRR juggernaut, no other way to describe it, feels as if it is everything, everywhere, all at once.

It may not have been India’s official choice for the Oscars (that was Pan Nalin’s The Last Film Show), but given that it has been shortlisted in the Music ( Original Song) category for Naatu Naatu, we may well be in for a dance-off to beat all dance-offs. We’ve watched, both amused and bemused, as theatres in Los Angeles have reverberated to the song, with people dancing in the aisles. Sure, there may have been many more desis in that theatre, but there are enough TikTok videos of all sorts of people trying the frenetic moves of NTR Jr and Ram Charan, the bros with the mostest, to get an idea of the song’s mad popularity. The former has replaced Rajinikanth in Japan, in making female fans delirious; the rousing welcome both stars received at its promotional events was quite astounding. Rajamouli himself has got standing ovations wherever he has been: at a conversation hosted by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September, he brought an overflowing house down.

Even more strikingly, the film has been gaining traction among international critics, who have, up until now, been either ignorant or dismissive of Indian movies, as it finds favour among film critics associations in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and counting. Just last week, it was nominated at the Golden Globes, the first Telugu film to have done so, for Best Non-English Language Motion Picture and Best Original Song. Even as this is being written, the film ranked ninth in Sight and Sound magazine’s Top 50 films of 2022, sprinting ahead of Tom Cruise’s aerial derring-do in Top Gun: Maverick.

This makes RRR the first Indian film to have trumped the critical/commercial divide outside the country. Most big festival programmers have consistently veered towards Indian art cinema. Recent films that took a modest stab at box office in the West included film-festival favourites The Lunchbox (2013) and Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012). The ones that went direct to theatres, by-passing film festivals — Dangal (2016); PK (2014); Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015); 3 Idiots (2009); Secret Superstar (2017) — are among the biggest overseas earners till now. The only non-Bollywood film, in this list of blockbusters helmed by superstars Aamir Khan and Salman Khan, is Rajamouli’s Baahubali 2 (2017). But RRR has raced far ahead of not just the Baahubali (2015) sequel but all the other films when it comes to the wholly unexpected collective hosannas from foreign critics.

RRR has raced far ahead of not just the Baahubali (2015) sequel but all the other films when it comes to the wholly unexpected collective hosannas from foreign critics.

What is it about this amped-up masala movie mounted on a massive scale, drawing upon the elements of the Bollywood films of the ’70s-’80s, that is capturing the imagination of people for whom this may be their first Indian outing? For those familiar with his work, this is not Rajamouli’s first attempt at revving up old-style mythology with cutting-edge technology: even before his Baahubali double bill made him a familiar name in India, he had made the vastly entertaining Magadheera, featuring characters from the past and the present.

Critics of RRR have panned its simplistic portrayal of the Gond tribal people, and the way it reduces the story of the real-life revolutionaries Komaram Bheem and Alluri Seetrama Raju, on which the main characters are based, and their contribution to the Independence movement, to the dictates of the movie. The prominence of Hindu iconography — the switch-over of Ram Charan’s character into that of Lord Ram, bow and arrow intact, among other things — a Muslim character conveniently disappearing from the story, and the absence of famous freedom fighters makes Rajamouli’s world a clear-eyed skew to today’s India.

But, and this is the thing, what Rajamouli has achieved in RRR is jaw-dropping in the way he has created a universe with a signature very much his own, with humans and animals, bad guys and good guys, heroes who unite to fight a common enemy, villains who are exterminated, where good was always going to overcome evil. He does it with such dexterity and conviction that you succumb. This is a solidly crafted entertainer, high on action and emotion, laced with high-energy song-and-dance, and it is this combination that is bewitching large swathes of the globe.

The Marvel-isation/ Disneyfication of studio Hollywood has resulted in a slew of movies that feel pale copies of pale copies. It’s hard to think of recent superhero films (except perhaps for the latest iterations of Spiderman) that have moved past familiar tropes, or been re-invented in ways that help them stand on their own, rather than become just one more in the assembly line of sequels and prequels. This is where RRR, with its fulsome embrace of all things Rajamouli knows from the inside out, has stood out.

Just because RRR is the flavour of this season, will more of our masala movies find equal favour outside India, going forward? Or will it be a flash in the pan? Its near-unstoppable march feels surreal, making one wonder if this is a “let’s-give-this-piece-of-Indian-exotica-a-chance” kinda year. But, at the same time, the achievement feels much more solid. RRR is a clarion call out to entertainment fans all over the world, its numbers having grown exponentially after the Netflix release. Whether it will win at the Oscars is up in the air, but RRR, and the three Rs who have made it what it is, are the clear winners of 2022.