[I strongly recommend skipping the trailer if you have not yet seen the movie. It's not so much spoilers as it is the discovery of what you are watching that might matter.]
This film came out a year ago and there were plenty of recommendations from friends in the Cinema Loving Community who recommended it. My only reservation was that it is three hours long and I just needed to find a time that would work. When it showed up on Netflix, I thought, "Good, now I have a chance to catch up with it." I never did. Finally, I saw that it was going to be featured as part of the Summer Film Series at the Paramount Theater in Austin, and I decided to wait so I could experience it for the first time on the big screen. Oh am I glad I waited.
To begin with, this movie is epic, hyperbolic and inventive as all get out. "RRR" is a an Indian film, made in a language that is not Hindi and it focuses on two legendary revolutionary figures. Historical accuracy has nothing to do with this film. It is set in India, primarily in Delhi in the 1920s. The British Empire is presented as a near totalitarian regime and represented by a Governor who may have emigrated from Nazi Germany. None of that matters one bit. Although it is filled with story lines that are clearly propaganda gone wild, it is the friendship at the center of the story, and the amazing cinematic visuals that make this movie literally sing. Yes, at times it is a musical.
Comic book movies from Marvel and D.C. have nothing on this superhero story that feature two extraordinary men of strong will, who are divided by circumstances not goals. I don't know anything about the actors or the director, they all apparently have a great deal of success in the film community of their native language (not Bollywood by the way). This is the kind of breakthrough film that could extend their film fame to a bigger audience, N. T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan are both charismatic and solid actors. I hope some of their films will make their way into my cinema queue in the future.
S. S. Rajamouli is the most successful Indian director of all time, and one of the influential artists of the world, and I knew nothing about him, that is going to change.
The movie is filled with over the top emotional moments, including oiled up, muscle bursting training montages and close up, love lorn looks, and seething anger and resentment. All of this is accompanied by the exquisite music from M. M. Keeravani, who also co-wrote the Academy Award winning song from this movie, "Naatu Naatu". The dance sequence that is partnered with the song is one of the greatest on screen expression of exuberance in dancing that you will ever see. It puts those moments in "Barbie" that aspire to do the same kind of thing, to shame. 
As great and entertaining as the singing and dancing moments are, they are matched by some of the most eye popping, jaw dropping, cheer inspiring action scenes you are ever likely to see. Unlike the "Fast and Furious" movies, this film embraces magical realism rather than pretending physics doesn't exist. We can accept some of the outrageous moments because we know this is a fantasy film. The scenes of rescue are heroically out there, and the attack with the animals is so much fun and looks so great that we don't care whether it makes sense. Our heroes can practically fly in some scenes but still we believe because we know this is myth not history.
The best part about waiting to see this was that the audience I was with was fulling embracing the spirit of the film. They hissed at the villains, cheered at the heroes, and when the music was at its most boisterous, you could feel people doing chair dancing in their theater seats. There was applause at several moments in the film and at the end the applause and cheers were loud and passionate. I had sooo much fun seeing this movie. It's an example of something that is purely cinematic, but also completely different from what we see in most western films. If there is any way you can see this in a theater, do that first, if not, make sure you are watching with some other people, you will want to high five and dance with someone while you do.
No comments:
Post a Comment