Each year, usually around Oscar season, a handful of non-English films cross over to American viewers; recent examples include Korean class thriller Parasite, languid Japanese drama Drive My Car, and reflective Norwegian romance The Worst Person In The World. It wasn’t until 2022 that one of these surprise successes both bucked the Academy’s timeline and hailed from India, despite the country being a global cinematic leader (it produces nearly 2,000 films a year, spread across dozens of languages and industries). The movie in question is S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR — or Rise, Roar, Revolt — a ludicrous three hour piece of anti-colonial historical fiction that functions as its own highlight reel, showcasing some of the best fight scenes, comedy, bromance and explosive musical numbers modern cinema has to offer.
The good news is that the film is now widely available (on Netflix, and on the globally accessible Indian streaming platform Zee5). The slightly less good news is that wading through RRR’s language availability can be complicated, but this hasn’t stopped Western fans, critics and filmmakers from gradually discovering it like an underground cult film through word of mouth, even though it was an immediate blockbuster success in South Asia.
Just how successful has RRR been in the United States? Its initial release was on March 24th, but nearly four months later, it’s still going strong in theaters across the country (thanks, in part, to a widely-publicized re-release), despite the fact that it’s been available on Netflix for over a month. You can stream it, or you can try finding a screening near you. Either way, you’re in for a rollercoaster of a time, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the party-like atmosphere created by big Telugu-language productions (or “Tollywood,” a sister industry to India’s Hindi-language “Bollywood,” which it surpassed financially in 2017). Between the film’s expert control over massive tonal swings, the clarity of its fiery action, and the sincerity of its devastating melodrama, it’s become a “this is how it’s done” rallying cry for American viewers who want better from the rushed corporate homogeneity of modern Hollywood franchises. In simple terms: it slaps, thanks to its unapologetic, adrenaline-fueled fan fiction about two real historical freedom fighters — who never actually met in real life — teaming up in the 1920s to battle the British empire amidst a flurry of superhero poses emphasizing their masculine stature, and physics-bending action whose staging emanates directly from their emotional journeys.
The best way to watch RRR is undoubtedly subtitled in cinemas, because a major selling point is just how vocal the reactions have been, between people clapping, cheering, and even getting up to dance. Granted, at this late stage of its theatrical run, watching it on the big screen might not be feasible in every part of the country (not to mention, the fact that several theaters continue to lack disability access, and the ongoing pandemic is still a danger to many). Streaming is, therefore, the next best thing, as an ever-widening window into media from all corners of the globe (Squid Game, anyone?). But the downside to watching RRR on Netflix isn’t just a matter of settling for a smaller screen.
For one thing, the film’s widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio is cropped horizontally to a TV-shaped 16:9, so you get a little less of the image. For another, the version found on Netflix is dubbed in Hindi. You can still watch it in Telugu on Zee5 if you’re keen to sign up — the platform has plenty of other great Indian films — but this version is not quite the original either, thanks to the scattered English language dialog also being dubbed in Telugu, and the persisting issue of cropping, which it shares with the Hindi version.
Thanks to Indian distribution models, which sub-divide streaming deals by language for various different local markets, cinema from the country faces an uphill battle when it comes to curious outsiders. For instance, Rajamouli’s previous two films, the over-the-top sword and sandal epics Baahubali: The Beginning and Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, also found relative success among western viewers online, but their language options can be complicated. They were filmed in Telugu and Tamil simultaneously — as in, each dialogue scene was shot twice — but only their Tamil versions are available on Netflix, in addition to dubs in Hindi and Malayalam (and in English, but only for the first one). What’s more, because of the aforementioned streaming deals, each version shows up as a separate asset, rather than one movie with the option to toggle between spoken languages.
Perhaps watching RRR in Hindi is all the same to viewers who don’t speak any Indian language — even though Hindi and Telugu are as different from each other as English and Korean — and the Netflix version does, in fact, have slight a leg up on most other dubbed movies, since its original lead actors (mega-stars Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) lent their voices to the Hindi track themselves. However, the larger differences between the two versions go slightly beyond authenticity and accurate lip-syncing. Just like English is considered the de-facto language in the U.S., and other widely spoken languages like Spanish are designated as “foreign” or lesser, there’s a more complicated political dimension to Hindi being the default for Western viewers experiencing Indian cinema.
The issue is partially geographical — Hindi is more common in India’s northern states, and tends to be prioritized over southern languages like Telugu, Tamil and Kannada, which have their own major blockbusters — and, when it comes to movies, the issue overlaps with the way Indian cinema is viewed from the outside, under the “Bollywood” umbrella. This is a term often used by non-Indians to group all Indian movies together, even though the Hindi-speaking Bollywood industry only produces some 20% of the nation’s massive cinematic output, while films in other languages don’t get their due. Of course, blockbusters like RRR have been responsible for expanding the conversation on what Indian cinema actually is, even within India itself (filmmakers like Rajamouli have shifted the understanding of the Indian mainstream, or the “pan-Indian” film, which was previously Bollywood’s domain).
However, learning these nuances — or even knowing to look for them in the first place — before signing up for a new streaming service isn’t always feasible for new audiences. It becomes especially difficult for some in the case of watching RRR in Telugu, since Zee5 only has yearly and quarterly subscriptions, with no monthly options or free trials; the platform may have launched in the U.S. last year, but it still feels aimed largely at South Asian diaspora viewers who are already familiar with the films, stars, and languages in question. It isn’t nearly as curatorial towards new and curious eyes, the way MUBI or The Criterion Channel are (more art-house centric platforms which provide a wider context for each movie).
That being said, if RRR’s crossover success proves one thing, it’s that while language is an important political dimension — especially in a film about colonial power structures, and featuring language difference as a key fixture of a comedic sublot — it’s also a barrier that great cinema can transcend with its use of powerful and rousing imagery. And while that imagery comes loaded with its own set of politics which may be unfamiliar to outsiders, the film is absolutely a worthwhile experience (and a stepping stone to Indian cinema) no matter which way you’re able to watch it, practically guaranteeing something you haven’t seen, heard or felt before about once every fifteen minutes.
