Hacker Cinema
RRR
రౌద్రం రణం రుధిరం
2022 · Film · 187 min
Directed by S. S. Rajamouli
A fictional history of two legendary revolutionaries' journey away from home before they began fighting for their country in the 1920s.
13 positive2 negative1 mixed12 neutralfrom 28 commenters
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32 comments on Hacker News
RRR is also a fun film.
It's been production ready (if that means something) for years. Used in one of the biggest movies in the world, RRR a while back, etc. etc.
[RRR](https://www.blender.org/user-stories/visual-effects-for-the-indian-blockbuster-rrr/)
> It's also not in the class "generating billions of dollars of value"
Clearly not as much as Linux, but almost certainly it's already been a part of asset creation or use within film and video games that topped billions of dollars. The movie RRR alone is 160m+ worldwide (See in part https://www.blender.org/get-involved/user-stories/).
Audience reaction to an Indian movie called RRR:
https://youtu.be/ExxZBNp6jy4
This is at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in LA :) so as American as it gets
I think there has been a terrible loss that is rarely acknowledged in that men in the western world can no longer have intimate friendships without having to defend their sexual orientation. Seinfeld's "Not that there's anything wrong with that" became a catchphrase for a reason but the line of thinking still exists.
I watched the "Tollywood" film RRR and it was startling and refreshing how much affection the two main male characters showed for each other. I don't know how Indian audiences reacted to it, but I guarantee that a lot of American viewers thought "so they're supposed to be gay, right?" The idea that male affection is merely a cover for closeted sexual attraction is pervasive in US culture.
It is one of my longstanding pain points, as my favorite authors ( Conan Doyle, Tolkien, Wodehouse ) show unabashedly close relationships between male characters and all my life I've heard insistences that the characters are actually gay and the authors were too repressed/cowardly to say so. It's tragic and I wish it was talked about more.
Men are under so much pressure to bottle up their feelings, and I think it the negative side-effects of that are around us.
That is right.
Most Indian regional language and Bollywood Hindi films (even the modern ones) run around 2h30m to 2h40m. The older films were even longer.
RRR, the Indian film that captured a lot of viewership around the globe had a runtime of 3h2m.
Most screenwriters and filmmakers in India design around the Interval-block to place a major plot-point just before the interval card is shown.
It is funny that recent Hollywood movies don't come with that. And even when a film is 2h+ long. Indian movie theatres just forcibly introduce a break in Hollywood films so that they can send people to the concession stands and restrooms. Sometimes, this happens mid-dialogue it is funny (and irritating at times).
Hahaha, I expected the criticism of my comment to be that too much of what I was counting as good is "high brow", in fact. Too artsy-fartsy. Leaning too much toward "The Green Knight" and not enough toward "Jaws".
[EDIT] Here, lemme just list the 2022 movies that I think were worth a watch if you're at all into the kind of thing they were doing:
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Glass Onion Top Gun: Maverick Bullet Train All Quiet on the Western Front Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Crimes of the Future Death on the Nile Everything Everywhere All at Once White Noise Nope Prey The Sadness You Won't Be Alone Dual The Northman The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (arguably just a less-exciting RRR, but hey, it makes up for it by also being shorter and non-horror comedy *is* a bit weak lately, so it gets in) Watcher Dashcam (one of the most interesting movies I've seen in a long time—you may hate it, but you'll feel *something*, damnit!) The Banshees of Inisherin
This is just ones I've seen (I usually manage, like, 1/2 of the films in a year that I want to watch, at best) and excluding a few that did in fact suck or that I didn't think quite merited inclusion (e.g. The Menu) or that are good for what they are but are pretty narrow in appeal (Violent Night). Like, I hear Cyrano is great, Emily the Criminal, Bodies Bodies Bodies, The Whale, and a bunch of others, but haven't made it to them yet (and, inevitably, I'll end up never watching some of them).
"Quite a few of those are sequels, remakes, or adaptations! White Noise was a book! Death on the Nile! One of those is a marvel movie!" yeah, I know—good luck finding an era in Hollywood when a ton of the films, and even a ton of the good films, weren't such. I reject that as, specifically, a complaint about this moment in cinema (it has more merit as a criticism of cinema in general)
Just a quick glance at Letterboxd....
Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Both Knives Out movies
Parasite
Nope (probably just in the "good" grouping, not great)
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That's, uh... just from the "popular this week" screen. And only the ones I've seen, so I know they're good. But I'm pretty sure all those are last five years, or close to it.
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Digging back to 2018 and later (we can say 2018 counts since 2023 just started, right?):
Annihilation
Sorry to Bother You
High Life
Midsommar
Uncut Gems (god it's so good)
Jojo Rabbit
The Lighthouse
The Green Knight
CODA
Spontaneous ([EDIT] It seems very dumb but wow is it a gut punch, when you start to think about what you're watching and make some connections to real life)
Red Rocket (small-scale brilliance)
RRR
Watcher
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I just realized I misread you as asking for 5 good ones from just one of the last 5 years, not 5 total from the last 5 years, but I think that gets the point across? Despite my leaving off a whole bunch that may be more taste-specific, not having watched even 1/3 of the films from that span I have good reason to believe are good, not exhaustively mining that timespan (I bet I could double the size of that list without changing how I was selecting them), and also omitting a bunch of more-popular movies that I think were at least decent.
[EDIT] Hell some years you could get to 2-3 good ones just by looking at what A24 produced that year, nothing else.
The suffering of the Indian people is not the topic at hand, it's the suffering of the Indian people caused by British and only the British. Got it.
Yes it was very bad. I saw a documentary about it called RRR.
RRR is the most expensive Indian film produced to date:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRR_(film)
See some of the film's action sequences here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32790428
So here's what I do when I buy a movie, either on Blu-ray or via iTunes. I download the remux from Usenet. If there isn't one (rarely), I wait for the Blu-ray to arrive and I rip it myself. There's a U.K. release of Wages of Fear that you cannot get in the U.S. any other way than purchasing the Blu-ray from BFI. (The U.S. Criterion Blu-ray release is missing 5 minutes of footage.)
Even for movies I rent or stream, I often download the remux to watch it, then delete it after watching. It's the only way to avoid bullshit like streaming apps (all of them except Criterion, no matter your settings), not letting me watch to the end of the credits in peace. Or subtitles which are shown below the frame for movies which are wider than 1.78:1. Or, let's say you want to watch RRR in its original language with English subtitles. Netflix only has the rights to the Hindi dub.
I want my money to go to the filmmakers and actors and production crew, but these fucking studios and streaming companies, man. Please, let me pay you to watch the movie in high quality and in peace. Why is it easier for me to pirate content? Like, it takes me 30 seconds to go to https://radarr.home.mydomain.org/, type in the name of the movie I want to watch, click search, click download, wait 5-10 minutes, and now it's there for me to watch.
Contrast that with going to Just Watch, maybe the movie is on a service I pay for, maybe it isn't. Maybe it's on Blu-ray, maybe only on DVD. Want to watch Happiness (1998)? Too bad, not available anywhere except maybe you can find a used DVD on Amazon for $50. How about The Heartbreak Kid (1972)? (Oh, hey, how do you like that, someone put up a copy of it on YouTube last year.) But time and again, movies just aren't available. I really don't understand why they get locked away. What's the incremental cost of taking a movie which has already been digitized for DVD or Blu-ray and making it available on a streaming service or for digital rental or purchase?
Come on Hollywood. Get your shit together.
It’s funny you should say that. RRR was the first Indian movie I’ve watched that felt like anime to me. I think it’s actually a very enlightening comparison.
> “Zindagi Na milega dubara”
Yeah this movie was made for a very specific audience going through a certain age and point in life, ('buddy road movie' but made for Indian millennials) hardly a great work of art.
First it was 'Dil Chahta Hai', when the Indian millennials were of college age or around that time. A movie about three friends hanging out and dreaming of the future they will have with the kind of partners they would hope to be with.
'Zindagi Na milega dobara' is about a early-mid career Indian millennials facing marriage, work issues. It's not a bad movie but the popularity and greatness of it comes from it being apropos for Indian millennials.
On the top of that there is a 'class' thing going on here, where RRR's target audience is a different class, and have an Inglorious Bastard style experience. Just like 'Dil Chahta Hai'/'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' are for the educated millennials class.
Marvel has become worse these days, it peaked at Infinity War, then a slow decline since then. I'm looking forward to a franchise or a movie that's entertaining as the first Star Wars trilogy.
That being said, if you like the story you'd really appreciate the movie RRR. I was pleasantly surprised when I went there without any expectation.
> No pressure to explain the seeming contradiction with ordinary reality
this is a feature and not a bug. The urge for excessive exposition is so tiring. Not everything needs an origins story, explanation, or a prequel. Hollywood has been leaning on that formula and you can see it in the product - the movies have become tiresome.
Nobody needs an explanation for their “powers”. Excessively qualifying a character more likely burdens then than lifts them. RRR was such a refreshing, thrilling watch parallel to Mad Max: Fury Road.
Agreed, while the movie was fun to watch, the FX are quite poor compared to US films. In terms of something American viewers would understand: it's about the equivalent of a Disney Plus show like the Mandalorian or Ms Marvel.
As far as FX quality goes, the recently released Bhramastra sets the high watermark for Indian films. The FX are Hollywood level...probably because it's made by Disney's Indian film studios (Star Studios) and the FX were outsourced to some of the same FX studios working on Marvel films. (And as a side bonus, there isn't any of the weird fetishization of British/white women or obsequious political pandering to the India's current ultra-nationalist government like there are in RRR.)
As an example of the difference in FX quality: in RRR, you're always aware of the artificial nature of the CGI because it doesn't "blend" into the world around it; the CGI sits on top of the world and is clearly separate from the action on screen. The animal FX are especially bad. In Bhramastra, the "astra" that give people various powers blend in with, light up, and shade the world around them even though they're purely CGI.
> overthetop cgi is equated with bollywood, to my knowledge
No. The overwhelming majority of Bollywood movies don't have much CGI. And RRR isn't a Bollywood movie to begin with.
The Critical Drinker - a YouTube movie reviewer who is very very selective about what he calls a good movie, says:
"RRR is the best movie you've never seen"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKN6FAKjFPU
Why? I am so tired of certain section of Indians online pretending that somehow all entertainment should be dictated as per their sensibilities of what's acceptable and what's not. What's wrong in having movies that are over the top? Everyone has different tastes. What's worthwhile for you maybe boring for someone else. I am not saying you have to start appreciating RRR if it's not something that you enjoy, but don't invalidate an experience that millions of people clearly enjoyed. I can appreciate a K Balachander, Gopalkrishnan, Satyajit Ray masterpiece while also hooting for Bheem in RRR. The greatest achievement of Indian cinema is how varied our repertoire is and there is something for everyone to enjoy. Celebrate it, don't be embarrassed about it.
For anyone unfamiliar with the movie or seeking some perspective on the film, I did very much enjoy this review/retrospective of RRR by Patrick H Willems, a channel which I generally enjoy. The same video is also on Nebula for folks with a subscription.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPU2D5Ftjbw
+1 on that. I only watched the action sequences in the movie as RRR is not the kind if movie I enjoy.
But the end of the movie, makes it quite clear that it is a nod to right wing Hindu nationalism. The most pointed example is the exclusion, in the end credits, of the 2 biggest icons of Indian liberation - Mahatma Gandhi and the first prime minister Nehru( the British locked him up for over a decade) who were secular liberals. Nehru happens to be the great grandfather of the main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.
As the right wing Hindu pre independence movement largely connived with the colonialists, the right wing government today is focused on appropriating a select few independence fighters and projecting them as right wing icons even though they were liberals or socialists. 3 prominent figures.
1. Bhagat Singh - a socialist who is now projected as a right wing icon and stripped of his Sikh beard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagat_Singh
2. Sardar Patel - Nehru and Gandhis colleague who had some right wing sympathies, but actually banned RSS (Modi's organization) following the assassination of Gandhi by RSS workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Unity
3. Subhash Bose - A foolhardy military strategist who tried to partner with the Nazis to fight the British. Eventually, assisting the Japanese in Burma and helping them invade India. Gandhi was extremely wary of Bose's plans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhas_Chandra_Bose
Towards the end, it projects the independence fight as a largely Hindu fight against British and anoints upper caste Rama as a leader of lower caste Bheem. At this point, it seems that the exclusion of muslims, sikhs and some Christians etc. From the script as freedom fighters seems deliberate.
Bheem is a nod to lower caste icon bhimrao Ambedkar, who converted from Hinduism to buddhism to escape caste hierarchies. This could have been a positive inclusion in the story, but it is flipped on its head when Bheem is shown swearing fealty to upper caste Rama in the end. The Ramayana itself, has a negative attitude towards lower castes, which makes this highly improper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambuka [1]
Moreover the choice of Rama is sensitive in the current political situation in India as Rama is being used as a tool to bully poor Muslims on the streets.
https://www.google.com/search?q=muslim+jai+shree+ram
[1] You will notice that Shambuka is noted as an "interpolated" character in Ramayana. This almost certainly true, but the Godliness of Rama as an avatar of Vishnu is part of the same interpolation. The original smaller Ramayana is simply the story of an "ideal king". This was converted into a story of divinity by the interpolation of Godliness, sexism and casteism(uttara and bala kanda) . Wikipedia has been edited to clarify that Shambuka is a later interpolation, while the article on Rama and Ramayana simply forget to headline that the divinity of Rama is a later interpolation. The interpolation makes complete sense as the brahmins successfully solidified the caste system and inserted casteist and sexist texts into several ancient sanskrit texts to anoint the caste system with divine status. There is a small ongoing movement to refer to the current version of Hinduism as Brahminism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Brahminism
My favorite comparison now is to look at what the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission cost.
It cost $73 million (according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission) RRR's budget was $72 million (according to Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRR_(film))
Seems a bit crazy with that comparison.
> probably for “Kannad” instead of Kannada
Yup. It's inconsequential but I find it very grating.
> and if KGF 2 is any indication, they should stop making movies altogether
I absolutely hated KGF 1 and didn't bother with the sequel. I honestly don't understand why people compare it to RRR.
This movie is apparently available to U.S. audiences only on Netflix with a Hindi dub. I'd really like to see it in its original language with English subtitles. As well, the total size of the UHD stream is about 14 GB which isn't going to be the best quality for a 3 hour runtime.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Bluray/comments/v3fzni/rrr_bluray/
I'll watch it anyway. Looks like a fun time.
Nah Bro.. RRR beats all the 3rd rate movies you have mentioned for global audiences.. this coming from a guy who loved Pushpa more than RRR.
I agree that RRR has its place. Like so many other Avenger style genre movies. The problem is that it just advances a stereotype and bias about what an American audience expects when they sit down to watch a Korean film, or a Chinese film, or an Indian film.
They are all just films, just like Hollywood makes different genres, these countries make films in every genre. At least the Indian film industry is a behemoth large enough to be able to make movies in every genre.
Probably the best Indian-as-indian-can-be movie that's released in a longtime. This is the highest grossing film of all time in Indian cinema, the Avengers Endgame / Jurrassic Park of India.
Pros
* Incredibly stylized and fresh (not derivative)
* great bro-drama
* arguably best dance scene EVER
* Not deeply cynical towards society like everything made today.
Cons:
* Long (but still somehow incredibly fast paced and dense, just a lot of arcs)
* over the top (but shamelessly so, and taken seriously)
______
RRR is a tectonic shift in how Indian cinema views itself. It is worth watching purely because of its place in the Movie movement zeitgeist.
IMO, This is the first Indian movie in 10 years that makes it to must watch territory for universal audiences (the last one being 3 idiots).
It is not even a 'best' indian movie. It just the current most popular indian movie with western audience.
Tumbbad is somewhat considered masterpiece of indian cinema. It was made with just 700 thousand $ https://m.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/movie-reviews/tumbbad/movie-review/66135343.cms.
>Pretty much every Indian movie I've seen is full of amazing and fun nonsense in one form or another.
They are the most popular genre. Production houses love them as they make them money and viewers also love to watch them as they can be watched by whole families.
>Not that I've seen more than 10 or 15 Indian movies, just curious what the mix is of serious drama vs, break into dance and or show crazy stunt movies is
Most of indian cinema is action genre with slice of life twist. There are also good serious movies with genres like drama, romcom, comedy, horror, history, sci-fi etc.
You must also know that Indian cinema is not a monolith like hollywood. There are 7 big 'woods' in india branched due to various languages. There is hindi wood (bollywood), tamil, telugu, kannad, marathi, bengali etc. Each have their own tasted with respective viewers. Over the counter action movies (like RRR) are most popular in south industries and viewers.
Unrelated:
If you enjoyed RRR and it's over the top drama, action sequences you might also like following movies.
1) Bahubali 1 & 2 (same director)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62HrubdD6o
2) KGF chapter 1 and 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qah9sSIXJqk
It’s highly enjoyable though it is also very nationalist propaganda in parts, which foreigners won’t pick up on. For the most part it never becomes an issue because the brunt of the movie is fighting colonialism and therefore quite appropriate and incredibly good. The end credit scene is the only part that I’d consider problematic from a messaging standpoint as it takes a hard line on who they celebrate and isn’t subtle about the directors political allegiances.
Anyway would really recommend watching it. It’s a wild ride, and incredibly well done. If you’re not from India, you can largely ignore the issues with internal politics
Edit: Since people are asking for links about the politics…
https://www.vox.com/23220275/rrr-netflix-tollywood-hindutva-caste-system
https://slate.com/culture/2022/06/rrr-review-indian-blockbuster-netflix-hindu-nationalism.html
Essentially it’s holding up some of the more radical freedom fighters and downplaying the more pacifist and equitable ones which reflects the directors political stance
There is also "I Lost My Body" which is full-length movie made in Blender. An interview with the director Jérémy Clapin[1] gives a bit of the backgound of the project.
Both "RRR" [2] and "I Lost My Body" [3] are on Netflix.
[1] https://www.blender.org/user-stories/i-lost-my-body-a-stunning-hybrid-cinematic-experience/
[2] https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81476453?s=i&trkid=13747225&vlang=en&clip=81552243
[3] https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81120982?s=i&trkid=13747225&vlang=en&clip=81305435
Marvel films have cheap, lazy cinematography, for the most part, so they leave a lot on the table in the name of (I assume) saving money. Every Frame a Painting mentions this in a few videos, especially their poor use of music and failure to do anything with mood-of-setting and, relatedly, camera work and editing (match it to the mood of the scene, contrast it to mood of the scene—little of that kind of thing at all, it's just very flat).
> (I realise TG: Maverick isn't going to be everybody's taste but it's the best film I've seen at the cinema in a long time, and the first time I've walked out of a movie feeling absolutely wowed since, perhaps, The Matrix came out in 1999.)
- Everything Everywhere All at Once
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- Blade Runner 2049
- RRR if pure, audacious, crazy popcorn-munching spectacle and a movie that's constantly saying "yes, and..." does it for you.
- Dune (the new one). Watch it on the biggest screen and best sound system you can get access to. Actually, that kinda goes for all of these.
A big step down from those in quality and they're not going to give you that "wow" effect, but still action films that are better than nearly all Marvel movies:
- Any Mission Impossible movie except maybe 2.
- The John Wick movies.
- Dredd.
- The Raid 1 & 2 (which Dredd rips off pretty blatantly, but it's decent, too)
I've heard very good things about the later Planet of the Apes (remake series) movies but have only seen the first one, personally.
Painful to limit myself to action movies. There are so many good films.