RRR (S.S. Rajamouli, 2022)

[Boosmahn]

One of the professors I have this quarter showed the trailer for RRR in class a couple of weeks ago. (Know that the trailer does spoil a few great moments, but was absolutely effective in piquing my interest.) I saw the film the night of with a friend, and I am very glad I did so.

It tells the heavily fictionalized story of two revolutionaries in British-ruled India, asking the question nobody asked but everybody should have: what if they were friends and also had unbelievable physical strength? It's a little over three hours, and its length can definitely be felt at times, but I wouldn't want to cut or trim anything. Between the -- there's no other word to use -- awesome action sequences (many of which have British colonists who simply act as bags of bones for our heroes to pulverize), there are scenes of exaggerated yet genuine emotion. The creators were obviously aware of the absurdity of the feats shown on screen but also what the revolutionaries mean to the Indian people. (Admittedly, that is only my impression, since I know very little about the country.) It's a crowd-pleaser of the best kind.

Are all Bollywood movies this off-the-wall?

[knives]

The action movies tend to be.

[Never Cursed]

RRR

I'm glad someone else here has seen this incredible expression of most forms of cinematic joy (a weird thing to say about a film concerning the brutality of colonial rule, but I wager the film's tone is not an outlier in Tollywood or Bollywood treatments of the same subject). Maybe it's a weird thing to highlight, but I thought the best things about the film outside of the crazyness of the big setpieces were the two lead performances. Even for someone unfamiliar with their place in this film industry, Charan and Rama Rao Jr. just sweat superstardom and have incredible positive chemistry with each other; their big duo dance number "Naatu", already a showstopper of the kind that no longer exists in American film, is really carried over the top by the Gene Kelly-ish glee that they take in performance (although they certainly use it as a more pointed weapon than I think his characters ever did). From what I hear, the Baahubali films made by the same director have a similar maximalist approach to historical action, so I'm definitely going to have to seek them out.

As a side note, is anyone here aware of an English-language discussion of the political implications of this film? I definitely feel a little out of my depth when it comes to unpacking odious Hindutva-related expressions (which I'm not sure if this film contains or not), so I'd be much obliged if someone could point me in the direction of some piece that does so.

[Red Screamer]

I get what people like about RRR and I found a fair amount in it to admire myself despite the fact that this is really not my thing—a loud, cartoonish, hyperviolent, hypermacho, hyperhyper video game movie (I’m gonna sound like an old man but I’m usually pretty dispirited by movies with this level of bloodthirst and hagiography). In the end though I’m not sure the craft is sturdy enough to justify all the bombast. The immersive action scenes have some creative filmmaking, particularly in their outsized concepts and in how Rajamouli uses their flexible, computer-animated imagery, but a lot of the movie is haphazardly shot and edited. The dance-off that Never Cursed linked to, for example, is pretty fun but it’s directed in the style of a typical YouTube music video—frontal compositions, unconnected movements, random camera swoops, jittery sped up motion and other amplified post-production effects—all focused more on being cool than being expressive. It takes away from whatever dramatic or spatial dynamism the scene might have had and it distracts from the actual dancing of the leads which, like Never Cursed said, is pretty much what sells the whole thing.

[Never Cursed]

I dunno, outside of the framerate manipulation (which I think looks ugly anywhere), the hyper-stylization of the musical numbers (and to a lesser extent the action sequences) didn't bother me in the same way it would have in, like, a Fast and Furious movie, and I certainly have to imagine that some of the more "objectionable" choices are more the result of a different grammar developed in a different film industry. This is an overcut and overfilmed movie, sure, but at least it's showing stuff of great energy and interest in those moments of overheatedness. Even if the actual effects quality wasn't as good, I actually thought the integration of the CGI into the action sequences put most Western blockbusters to shame - the stampede sequence in particular I thought was impressive in how brutal it became. (As for Naatu, I'm also probably giving it more of a pass because of how much I like the song itself, though I still think the dances themselves are well-captured and I have an inordinate fondness for the ending where [spoiler]Ram throws the competition).[/spoiler]

[MichaelB]

Presumably because of fears over piracy, RRR made an unexpectedly early appearance on Netflix yesterday, at least in the UK.

Two caveats: they only have rights to the dubbed Hindi version (albeit dubbed by the same actors), with the original Telugu version restricted to the Indian streaming service Zee5, and it's presented in 16:9 instead of the theatrical 2.35:1.

However, comparing the Netflix version with the 2.35:1-framed YouTube version of 'Naatu Naatu', it's clear that the reframing was achieved by opening the image up at the top and bottom rather than cropping it at the sides, and I gather this reframing was personally sanctioned by S.S. Rajamouli for home viewing - presumably, as with Godfrey Reggio's similar decision regarding Koyaanisqatsi back in the 4:3 CRT era, it was more important that the image fill the screen and be presented on as large a scale as domestic technical circumstances permit.

[tenia]

So it's pretty much an Open Matte version then ?

[MichaelB]

It was shot on an Arri Alexa LF, whose native aspect ratio is 16:9, so I assume it was cropped for the theatrical DCPs.

Anyway, it's not an issue worth worrying about: compositionally, it looked absolutely fine, and Rajamouli strikes me as the kind of director who pays quite close attention to framing.

[Never Cursed]

For what it’s worth I believe a high quality version of the Telugu language version, also open matted in the same way, is now circulating outside of the realm of legal streaming - assuming there are subs for that version (which is probably the case), that’s the way I’d go, as the songs definitely sound the best in Telugu