In Defence of Mass Films and SS Rajamouli’s Sight and Sound List

There is nothing surprising about the list itself: Baahubali (2015) is in a sense, a remake of The Lion King. That he includes Mayabazar (1957) and Ben Hur (1959) is also no surprise — if anything, it contextualises his ambition of adapting the Mahabharata as a Hindu equivalent to Ben Hur, a Christian epic. Forrest Gump (1994) also makes sense, given his penchant for sentimentality and emotions. I’m not sure if he has conflated his favourites with what he thinks are the greatest films of all time. Perhaps the distinction doesn’t exist for him?

The reason Indians are arguing, debating, dragging one another — even those on the same side of the political spectrum over RRR — is because of the West’s, specifically America’s, disinterest in anything except the biggest, loudest, most spectacular action film produced in India. We are sniping at each other across a trench dug for us. Films like Ponniyin Selvan 1 (2022) and Ante Sundaraniki (2022) are personal favourites from 2022, but the West doesn’t have the context, inclination, or interest to understand these films. And action, as Rajamouli pointed out, is a universal language.

RRR is a success in the West (and in other markets such as Japan) for the same reason Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) was; for the same reason the Marvel films do well in India: They’re creative, audacious action, buoyed by the unique, culturally-specific mechanics of the mass film. RRR is possibly in contention for the Academy Awards because of this, and because of its behemoth campaign, a virtual necessity for a film to stand a chance in the mainline Oscar categories. Given the Oscars’ predilection for specific genres — especially drama, perhaps RRR’s candidacy reveals a newfound openness to other genres. The Academy Awards have, after all, been famously unfair to genre fare like action and horror. If we are rueing the lack of interest in other Indian films, this only points to the fact that we have to go through the Oscars to reach a wider audience and global respectability. It speaks to the dearth of a progressive, inclusive platform in South Asia that can talk about the cultural and political nuances of South Asian films, appreciating both the mass and the artsy.