A.C.E.
August 1, 2022
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 15
Global success of RRR signals breakthrough for Tollywood
TOLLYWOOD TRIUMPH. This image released
by Netflix shows Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr.
in a scene from RRR. India’s film industry is one of the
most vast and varied in the world — it’s really not one
but many separate industries, including Bollywood,
Tollywood, and others — yet few of the country’s
roughly 2,000 annually produced movies ever make
much of a dent with western audiences. (Netflix via
AP)
By Jake Coyle
The Associated Press
EW YORK — India’s film in-
dustry is one of the most vast and
varied in the world — it’s really
not one but many separate industries,
including Bollywood, Tollywood, and
others — yet few of the country’s roughly
2,000 annually produced movies ever
make much of a dent with western
audiences.
“We have a long tradition of storytelling
in India. We have probably the oldest and
most colorful stories,” says director S.S.
Rajamouli. “Not being able to travel across
borders has been a disappointment.”
That has changed emphatically with
Rajamouli’s RRR, a three-hour Telugu-
language action epic that has not only
become one of India’s biggest hits ever but
climbed U.S. box-office charts before
finding an even wider audience on Netflix.
For nine straight weeks, RRR has ranked
among the top 10 non-English language
films on the streaming service. Dubbed in
Hindi and subtitled in 15 different
languages, RRR is the most popular film
from India ever on Netflix, charting among
the top 10 films in 62 different countries.
For many, RRR, based on Hindu myth-
ology and the freedom fighters that fought
British colonialism, is their first encounter
with Tollywood, the Telugu movie in-
dustry, or Indian films, at all. What many
have seen is a movie filled to the brim with
over-the-top action sequences and
sprawling dance numbers, and an energy
that today’s Hollywood blockbusters
seldom match. Motorbikes are juggled.
Tigers are thrown. Suspenders prove a
surprisingly pliable dancing prop.
“There is never enough for me,”
Rajamouli said in a recent interview from
Hyderabad in India. “The only thing too
much is my producer coming in and saying,
‘We’re crossing our budget. You need to
stop somewhere.’ That is the only thing
that will stop me. If given a chance, I will
go even bigger and wilder, no doubt about
it.
“To the brink, and nothing less.”
That go-for-broke style has earned the
N
endorsements of some of Hollywood’s
blockbuster filmmakers. James Gunn and
Scott Derrickson, who have each helmed
Marvel movies, have heaped their praise
on RRR since it began streaming.
The RRR success has come while Netflix
is reeling from subscriber loss and a stock
decline, a downturn that has thrown its
movie model into debate. But one less
disputable aspect of Netflix’s platform is
its ability to foster non-English global hits.
RRR comes in the wake of global series hits
like the Korean “Squid Game” and
France’s “Lupin.” Theatrical-first movies
like the South Korean best-picture-
winning Parasite have already toppled
what director Bong Joon Ho has called “the
one-inch barrier” of subtitles.
“Frankly, I didn’t expect this kind of
reception from the west,” says Rajamouli.
“In the country and across the Indian
diaspora all over the world is what we
expected. But the reception from the west
was a complete surprise for me. I always
thought that western sensibilities are
different from my kind of films. I mostly
cater to eastern or Indian sensibilities.”
But while RRR has certain effects-heavy
Hollywood characteristics that make it not
so dissimilar from a superhero movie, it’s
deeply engrained in Indian myth and
present-day circumstance. “RRR” stands
for “Rise Roar Revolt,” but it also refers to
Rajamouli and his two stars, N.T. Rama
Rao Jr. and Ram Charan. They’re each
from movie-star dynasties that have
previously been more like rivals. This is
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Charan and Rao’s first film together,
which is a little like a meeting of Al Pacino
and Robert De Niro, if they were also the
sons of Marlon Brando and James Dean.
They play real-life Indian revolution-
aries Alluri Sitarama Raju (Charan) and
Komaram Bheem (Rao) who team up in
1920s
British-controlled
India.
In
returning to the origins of modern-day
India, RRR inevitably relates to today’s
India, where, like in many other countries
in recent years, nationalism has been on
the rise. Since being elected in 2014, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi has emboldened
India’s Hindu majority, sometimes at the
expense of its Muslim minority.
Rajamouli, 48, has risen as one of the
country’s biggest name directors over the
same time period. He launched his
two-part Baahubali epic in 2015. Its 2017
sequel ranks as the country’s biggest
box-office smash. (Both are also streaming
on Netflix.) But the political subtext of
those films some have found troubling.
“In Baahubali, even though it seems to
have no connection with the political
present, what it foregrounds is a muscular
form of Hinduism, which is the worst
manifestation of the right-wing national-
ism,” says Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, a
University of Illinois professor who has
written several books on Indian cinema.
“Jingoist, nationalistic Hindu machismo.
In the story, it’s projected into the
mythological past.”
Baahubali was a Telugu triumph that
signalled that Tollywood in India’s South
had perhaps surpassed Bollywood as the
country’s top movie factory. In RRR, the
most expensive Telugu film ever made
with a budget of $72 million, Rajamouli is
juggling both Telugu traditions and
Bollywood song-and-dance aesthetics in
what Mehta considers a Pan-Indian
movie. Muslim characters appear,
although not in primary roles.
RRR in this way may not be so different
from American blockbusters. This
summer’s top film in the U.S., Top Gun:
Maverick, also doesn’t skimp on muscular
jingoism. Rajamouli has heard the critics
but disagrees with their interpretations.
“I understand that point of view. Some-
times, I feel they’re just being blind,” he
says. “Personally, I’m an atheist. I don’t be-
lieve in god. I don’t believe in any religion.
But I understand the power of spiritual-
ism. For me, spiritualism is an emotion.
And I write stories filled with emotions.”
Surely, many of the cultural references
and connections in RRR will sail right over
the heads of most western viewers. But the
sheer verve of its filmmaking isn’t getting
lost in translation — and that may mean
more cultural-crossovers for Tollywood
and India to come.
“India cinema has had a different life
and cycle of its own. If we keep an open
mind, we can see this as the arrival of
something,” says Mehta. “Only time can
tell. We’ll have to see if this is actually a
new trend and there will be more films like
this made. Indian or Telugu cinema might
keep it up, or this might be a one-shot
thing.”
Rajamouli, meanwhile, is prepping his
next highly anticipated film. He’s now
often asked about whether he’d ever want
to make a Hollywood movie or a Marvel
one. RRR, though, hints more at western
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