BOTTOM LINE
Doesn’t Break Any New Ground
RATING
2.25/5
OTT PLATFORM
NETFLIX
What Is the Documentary About?
Directed by Raghav Khanna, Modern Masters – SS Rajamouli is a 74-minute documentary on the filmmaking journey of the creator behind many pathbreaking blockbusters like RRR, Baahubali, Magadheera, Chatrapathi. The film also comprises insights from his family members – Keeravaani, Rama Rajamouli, Karthikeya, V Vijayendra Prasad – and other names from the industry including James Cameron, Ram Charan, Jr NTR, Rana Daggubati, Prabhas, Shobu Yarlgadda, K Raghavendra Rao and Karan Johar.
Analysis
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The biggest challenge as you set out to make a documentary on SS Rajamouli – how do you capture an undiscovered side to a widely documented personality? While it’s categorically hard to tell if the film succeeds on that front, it nevertheless serves as a decent document of the storyteller’s journey, on how he raised the stakes gradually to tell his stories with an unparalleled vision and scale.
Expectedly, it’s the segments prior to his film journey and the trivia from his personal life that hold your interest. Beyond his uncompromising vision in cinema, the conversations let you discover him as a caring father, an unromantic husband and a laidback family man with a love for cricket. It inevitably also shows the key role his family played in his pursuit to chase global heights.
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The target audience of Modern Masters – SS Rajamouli is the outsider who wants to know the filmmaker beyond RRR and Baahubali. It offers a peek into his not-so-rosy childhood, when his ancestors didn’t taste success in cinema, his ad-campaign days, times when he felt stifled working for television and gradually made his film debut with Student No 1, under K Raghavendra Rao’s supervision.
However, it’s disappointing that it doesn’t break any new ground with its insights from the perspective of a Telugu viewer (who is very likely to have dissected every possible dimension of his career – from his Santhi Nivasam days to Student No 1 to RRR) The uni-dimensional documentary conveniently shifts from Student No 1 to Magadheera, Eega and explores his career only post Baahubali.
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The film takes inputs from his close circles – family, friends, collaborators within the industry, who more or less are in awe with Rajamouli, reducing scope for any critical dimension to emerge. Even in portions where the director is questioned about his controversial views on caste and portrayal of Tamannah’s Avantika in Baahubali, the responses are disappointingly defensive.
The effort does deserve credit in highlighting Rajamouli’s strengths to the world – his ability to project a hero from a fan’s perspective, create nuanced villains who challenge the protagonist, his ability to integrate action and VFX to enhance a story (and not distract the viewer from it). It also provides an insider’s view into the making of his popular films with unseen footage.
A key dimension missing from the film in documenting the pan-Indian filmmaker’s rise is the lack of due credit to his marketing genius. While he did elevate the visual storytelling standards of Telugu cinema to a new level, he gave a tailormade DIY model on promoting a film to a wider audience. It’s difficult to comprehend why the scope of the documentary remains microscopic.
Music and Other Departments?
Modern Masters – SS Rajamouli’s exploration of the filmmaker’s career could’ve been little more than a Wikipedia entry tracking his major milestones. Barring the poor creative choices, the technical finesse is one of its significant successes. It’s shot intimately and gorgeously across the globe, the editing is sharp, and the tone of the storytelling remains consistent.
Highlights?
Slick, sharp execution
Near-perfect guide to an outsider about SS Rajamouli
The effort to decode the filmmaker’s life beyond camera
Drawbacks?
More celebratory and less critical
Skips key phases in the director’s graph
Doesn’t analyse his craft enough
Did I Enjoy It?
In parts
Will You Recommend It?
More for an outsider than an insider
Modern Masters SS Rajamouli Movie Review by M9
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