Baahubali

I've been kind of removed from movies these last few months, and with Dhruva here, that's changed. He's a huge movie buff, and his eye and feel for the subtle, the abstract as also the detail amazes me so much, that I could watch a movie with him just for that enhanced experience.

In fact, the day he reached he had me listen to the sound track, talking of how in Indian movies it's normally song tracks but in this one they had a sound track which was so brilliant.

So it followed that we booked for Baahubali 2. Then he insisted I watch Baahubali 1 first. He didn't fully trust me to get the import of what he was saying I guess, so he put it on a pen drive for me and each day he would ask if I'd seen it, until I had. And I'm so glad, as it otherwise wasn't even on my radar.

The movie itself is absolutely epic, everything larger than life, like stepping into another world..... a world which is as real as unreal, where imagination is stretched to glorifying heights, and I was blown by how Rajamouli accomplished converting of that stretched imagination into a visual and emotional extravaganza.

I was telling my mom after I came that it leaves one with the same feeling as Ten Commandments or Benhur did back then. That epic.

While a lot of folks have been praising it for the first time CGI and VFX levels for India,  it also has a lot more going for it, storyline, complexities and nuances of power, loyalty, betrayal, arrogance, love, commitment,  fairness....it has it all. And the women play such strong and powerful roles...... characters who can't and won't be kept down. Complex, bold, strong...... an added pleasure.

I'm not even going into story as that could be a whole long post by itself, especially as it's not as much storyline as the layered characters and conflicting situations. And there's so many amazing facets to the movie that it would be impossible to cover in one post.

Some of the sequences literally take your breath away. In fact after a long coronation sequence, I actually told Dhruva that I felt I had started breathing again. That spell binding.

While all the actors were brilliant, I would make special mention of Prabhas in how he brought out the different characterizations of the father and son (he plays both), inspite of the fact that both of are equally strong and heroic. Simply amazing.

Yet another facet which stood out for me is how, while each characterization is strong, and there is heroism all over, there are yet no typical paragons of virtue.  And just the fact that the movie does not judge even the best of them for perspective driven decisions, drawn from conflicting experiences, is a refreshing shift in Indian cinema

The kingdoms, (Mahishmati was so very beautiful) the power conspiracies, battles strategies, war scenes were fascinating to watch. And the romance between Amarendra Baahubali and Devasena had shades of the Titanic, Jodha Akbar and Bajirao Mastani in it, making it as passionate and endearing.

Rajamouli has definitely taken not just Telugu cinema, but Indian cinema to a whole new dimension

At this point I feel I could watch both all over again....and likely will :)