The cinema aisles are lit up with the screens of a dozen mobile phones as a third of the audience shuffles in unapologetically during the opening 20 minutes of the film. The aroma of popcorn and puffed rice blends with fried onions and chillies as three girls snigger while trying to find their seats in the blackness. A young man loudly takes a phone call, a cheer comes from the back, and somewhere in the dark a hot samosa is eaten too quickly. All the while a melodious cacophony of sound and vision throbs from the screen. This is an Indian movie theatre, and the audiences are back.
And what a film to return to. RRR is the big-budget, multilingual, pan-Indian, historical-action-romance blockbuster from the renowned Telugu film-maker SS Rajamouli, a much awaited, oft-delayed jamboree that not so much defies definition as comprehension. As wave after wave of lush, beautifully crafted bombast is gleefully dished out to a bedazzled audience, minds both complex and simple will spend days processing what they have seen. RRR (which stands for âRise, Roar, Revoltâ, in English anyway), had the best global opening day takings by any Indian film of all time, beating Rajamouliâs last film, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. Just as British, and to some extent American, cinemas banked on James Bond to help corral crowds back after a turbulent two years, so Indian theatres hope a clutch of big releases – RRR, The Kashmir Files, the Kannada-language KGF Chapter 2 (Kolar Gold Fields) and Jersey, starring Shahid Kapoor – will bring back the filmi hordes as states lift Covid measures.
âCinema is religion in India. You canât keep religion away from people for too longâ, says Komal Nahta, a film industry analyst and host of Bollywood focused TV shows. This sentiment is echoed by Jaspreet P Bajaj, a former film journalist and founder of Bombay Funkadelic, a Bollywood-themed events company in the UK: âMost people have had enough of watching movies on…