RRR - Tollywood movie on Netflix. Anyone else see this thing yet?

Cafe Society
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Netflix*

Indian movie and yowza, what a movie. The most expensive movie in Indian movie history and every penny is there on the screen. It has almost everything in it. Insane action sequences, huge dance numbers(well, one main one), slow-motion everywhere, and really just an incredible movie.

I found the opening 40 minutes(the movie is 3 hours long) to be the worst, but then something about the charm of such a film just overwhelmed me and I found myself cheering by the end. It’s a really fun movie and it is really getting a lot of attention from film-lovers. It’s quite the big picture.

*they only have it in Hindi even though Telugu is the original language. Why Telugu is not an audio option is a mystery. Anyway, detracts from Netflix more than it does the movie.

If you’d like to see the dance number from the movie that is getting a lot of attention, here it is. Zippo spoilers in the dance seuqence.

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Did they blur the ladies’ shins? Either way, not my kind of thing. Like a Marvel fight scene, it goes on too long.

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Slate had an article on this recently: RRR movie on Netflix: The wild Indian blockbuster has a troubling political subtext.

If we’re going to champion the film in part for its anti-colonial stance, we should likewise take stock of its uglier but no less important subtexts.

Let’s start with the religious iconography. This is hardcore Hinduism through and through, an apt representation for a country that’s employed authoritarian tactics to empower violent Hindu nationalism and transition to a de facto ethnocratic state.

…
Already, it’s far from the only recent historical-fiction Indian blockbuster to soft-peddle nationalist ideology. This year alone, The Kashmir Files, praised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, garnered controversy for giving Hindu nationalists more Islamophobic ammo through the use of alternative history. The Marathi period film Pawankhind whips up furor against the historic Muslim-led Mughal Empire, a sore spot for Hindutva acolytes. Even Rajamouli’s previous hits, like Baahubali , have been uplifted as “the answer to all anti-Hindu Bollywood crooks.” You don’t have to take my word for it. You can read the words of Hindu nationalists themselves, in provocative headlines like this one: “If The Kashmir Files Gave Liberals the Wounds, RRR Is the One Rubbing the Salt.”

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@Mahaloth - Thanks for the recommendation, will watch this weekend.

@Acsenray While Slate definitely has their rights to criticize the movie, I’d like to say my opinion which is that I loved Kashmir files; because it reflected the stories of many friends and colleagues I have known in my lifetime.

RRR will definitely have Hindu exaggerations, but many Indians look at it from the perspective of Indiana Jones movies, where Hindus were stereotyped and things made up about eating monkey brains. (for the glory of Christianity). Where was Slate back then ?

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Wasn’t that movie released years before Slate was created?

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It seems to me that there is currently a big deal going on about Hinduism being misrepresented in the West. I suspect it isn’t Indians but Indian-Americans who are upset. When it’s part of the dominant culture, where you know everyone understands the religion, it’s generally not offensive. But when it’s what other people think your religion is actually like, it gets a bit more contentious.

The same is likely true of why Japanese Americans seem to object more to the “Weird Japan” stereotype a lot more than people in Japan.

In short, I think it’s an instance of the “it’s okay when we do it” phenomenon.

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I don’t really see anyone currently at Slate defending the portrayal of Indians in Temple of Doom. But that just seems like whataboutism to me. Why should I have to say anything about a movie that came out nearly four decades ago in order to talk about a current movie?

And yes Slate was founded 12 years after that movie was released.

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Wow. Those guys really love nachos. That has to be the most enthusiastic reaction to food since Solid Potato Salad.

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Sure and if all that comes with outright propaganda and peddling of conspiracy theories, and stoking hate speech and threats of sectarian violence, then so be it, I guess.

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Sure lets indulge in victim shaming. Lets shame the survivors of a gruesome ethnic cleansing operation where they saw their loved ones butchered, their property snatched away, and them reduced to slum dwellers.

Lets blame them for making a movie depicting their Holocaust to the best of their memory. While at it, lets also blame them for not depicting the offenders in the best human light possible.

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It is not “victim blaming” to criticize a movie.

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Without jumping into the political/religious background, as a relative outsider it was a lot of fun. Full disclosure, the only thing about Indina cinema I know is a select few Sharuk Khan blockbusters.
As usual, it is quite long, but it does sport the usual over the top action, dancing and emotions. In that vein it feels a bit more like theater sometimes, but the pure exuberance is very nice to watch. It did motivate to actually look a little bit into the depicted historical figures, whom I never heard about before.

I do think it is quite clear to even a casual viewer that this has nothing at all with what really happend. It has the same level of historical accuracy as Abe Lincoln - Vampire Hunter. And as a German, it is nice to see someone else as over the top evil mooks :wink:

We had a lot of fun and I think Netflix really should market their international movies a lot more - there are so many interesting things to discover out there!

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Here is James Cameron gushing about RRR while meeting the director. It must be amazing to hear that the Terminator 2 director thinks your action movie is amazing.