Noob Film Review - RRR by S.S. Rajamouli. Colonization and the Hegelian subtext

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(Edited)
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It is without a doubt that India in general, and Tollywood in particular have been churning out masterpieces that is not only gargantuan in production but also masterful in writing.

This does not happen in a day though. The momentum has been going on since the black and white day in the early 1900s with the adaptation of myths and legends onto the screens. And RRR is the child of many breeds of Indian cinema (Tollywood, Kollywood, Mollywood) which since Bahubali, gave birth to the Pan-Indian genre. It was released in multilanguage and unites the viewers and thus, sharing what the film trying to tell across the land.

Like a lot of films nowadays that focus on only spectacle and not substance, this one (and many other recent Tollywood titles) has both. Behind the action scenes lies meanings and they stay relevant to the main story.

Set in 1920s India during the tyrannical British colonization, two fictional protagonists from the opposite sides of the spectrum, one represented by fire and the other one by water, meet in the middle to form a fusion of sorts in the end.

The Hegelian subtext that I see cannot come anymore clearer. Two sides of the fire and water are each the thesis and anti-thesis. What is produced in the end is a divine synthesis.

The people of different casts and religions come together out of colonization to form a new breed of a nation and spread its wings all over the globe. You can see Indians everywhere now doing everything you can think of. What religion and political background, you name it they have it. Same as the Chinese, they are now the global power to be reckoned with.

Compare this to the current state of the country (Malaysia). We have been out of colonization for almost 70 years but as Marina Mahathir said, this is just another colonization cloaked in a different color. The one in power has been molding us into one form only.

In the Hegelian sense, we are not yet out from the thesis and anti-thesis level. Still insisting that things should be the same forever so the one in power can also stay the same (someone already announced coming back for the third time!)

The need for dialectic has been denied. Imagine if we could reap from the fruit of diversity to form a gradual ascent towards more communism and less capitalism. This will be demonized and marked as blasphemous because of its Marxian link being taken stereotypically. We are stuck in the endless loop of ’Merdeka’ yet we are not. The GroundHog’s Day effect.

This RRR film unites, compared to one recent local hit (also about fighting against the British colonizer, but with a huge number of Gurkha’s casualties instead) which the regime used as a tool to preach their dividing idealogy despite promoting ‘keluarga’. Yet this is what appeals to the lowest common denominator, says a lot about the type of majority we have.

The same ‘keluarga’ guy giving a speech at the UN conference in the language which they thought is symbolic of being ’Merdeka’ but it is just a plain and obvious downgrade. It is not the language spoken but what is said.

Democracy or Demogorguery? Meanwhile, the result of the dialectic shown in RRR is godly and divine. Now that’s an upgrade.

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