Happy Birthday SS Rajamouli: A retrospective to understand his work, RRR, Baahubali and beyond

Despite a significant number of naysayers, RRR is being advertised as a fan favourite among Oscar contenders. The film’s award and theatrical campaign are being run by Dylan Marchetti of Variance Films. He calls RRR as not just “the best movie from India this year. It’s the best movie in the world this year.” The film’s supporters believe that getting as many Academy voters as possible to watch this bombastic action drama on the big screen in a packed cinema hall is the best campaign strategy to pursue. In this effort, they continue to run the #encoRRRe programme to showcase the film in cinemas across the US. This program was launched earlier in June to give the American audience ‘one last chance’ to experience the movie on the big screen as at the time the film was already made available for streaming for a global audience on Netflix. After a low-key launch in the US, the film found an organic fanbase in the US, which was both stupendous and impressive.

Ram Charan and Jr NTR in RRR.

Every screening of RRR has added to the film’s growing popularity worldwide. The film’s recent screening as part of the Beyond Fest in the Chinese theatre in Los Angeles made quite a splash. The film was watched by over 900 people on the IMAX screen in the presence of Rajamouli. The filmmaker himself was surprised by the way the non-Indian audiences responded to the movie. The visuals from the screening showed a group of overzealous fans of the movie doing the hook step of the ‘Natu Natu’ song, prompting Rajamouli to say thus: “I was imagining that I was coming to America but it looks like a place called Ameerpet in Hyderabad, my home town.”

SS Rajamouli is fast becoming the most celebrated Indian filmmaker globally. It’s hard to recall when was the last time Indian filmmakers struck such a chord with the mainstream audience worldwide. He proved that you don’t have to always make a realistic and ‘pure’ film to make a mark in international markets. You can accomplish this feat by doing unapologetically crowd-pleasing movies.

The effects of Rajamouli’s global success on Indian cinema are undeniable. By Mani Ratnam’s own admission, it was Rajamouli who gave him the courage to split his dream movie Ponniyin Selvan into two. One of the many challenges that stopped Ratnam from making Ponniyin Selvan for decades was the novel’s sheer size. Splitting a movie into multiple parts, which was considered a risky move in the past, is becoming a formula for huge box office success in India since Baahubali.

What’s it about SS Rajamouli’s storytelling that is redefining the very landscape of the Indian film industry? It cannot be answered without rewatching Rajamouli’s past movies and digging out the clues in them. Indianexpress.com will do a retrospective series on Rajamouli’s career to understand what makes him tick as a storyteller. We are hoping that this exercise will reveal certain recurring patterns, themes, tropes and cinematic elements of Rajamouli, which he has perfected over the last 20 years to reach where he is today.