This Article First Appeared In Indian Express On Dec 14, 2022
The Golden Globe nominations for S S Rajamouli’s RRR are, in a sense, an acknowledgement of the film’s immense popularity and impact across the world. Domestically, like the two-part Baahubali, Rajamouli’s Raj-era action extravaganza transcended linguistic barriers and became a pan-Indian blockbuster. On the international stage, it now represents a new stage in the evolution of Indian mainstream cinema’s soft power. In that sense, RRR marks a phenomenon that is both novel and known.
Indian cinema’s cultural influence for the first few decades after Independence was outsized compared to its economic and political might. Initially, and for years thereafter, the storied popularity of the socialist era and its ethos in Raj Kapoor’s films, particularly in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe made it one of the country’s primary cultural exports.