‘Ranabaali’ director Rahul Sankrityan on box office vs. legacy: A film remains forever

It has been a fortnight since the release of Ranabaali, starring Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna, and director Rahul Sankrityan is enjoying the calm at his office in Hyderabad, having wound up post-release promotions.

“It is always a learning experience to see how everyone responds to our work,” he says. Ranabaali released on October 16, competing with the Rajinikanth-starrer Jailer 2. The film got off to a moderate start, gradually picking up momentum at the box office.

Rahul, whose last film was Shyam Singha Roy in 2021, acknowledges the initial mixed reactions to the film. “I am confused about whether we, as directors, should make a film that pleases the box office in its opening week, or make something that stands the test of time. A film remains forever. If people rewatch it after a few years, it should still be worth their time. The release day reception depends on several factors. Unlike Jailer 2, a complete mainstream entertainer, we put forth a commercial story soaked in history.”

Backed by research

Discussing the shift in audience tastes every few years, he says it has become imperative to complete a film and release it within a short time. “Our film, however, involved extensive research, hence it took time to complete.”

Once the research about the Great Madras Famine of 1876-78 was in place, Rahul intended to present the story like Braveheart and other international classics, but root it in Rayalaseema’s folklore, the Burra Katha. “The format of oppressor versus the oppressed, and a saviour, is not new. We have seen it since the time of Spartacus.”

However, since Indian cinema has witnessed an overdose of such themes in recent years, a few critics and some members of the audience wondered if Ranabaali, too, inevitably walked a familiar line. Could Rahul have narrated the story differently? “These comments have mostly come from cinephiles who are exposed to a wide range of cinema. I noticed how the regular audience was warming up to Ranabaali. I could have opted for a mellow portrayal. But a story of how eight million people were killed would have been either depressing or felt like a documentary. I chose a commercial format since it is a big budget film and has a star, Vijay Deverakonda.”

Folk superhero

The folk tradition of Burra Katha gave the film a new texture. Having grown up in Rayalaseema, Rahul says folk artistes elevate the central characters of their stories more than commercial cinema. “All my characters, including Ranabaali, Rajamma, Jayamma, the villain, and the horse, were inspired by these stories. For example, the story of Gadekal Nagi Reddy, as narrated by folk artistes, was over the top, with accounts of him jumping over trains with his horses.”

Rahul adds that he was eager to present a folk superhero on screen. “Unfortunately every other hero in our mainstream cinema is portrayed as a superhero, and it becomes a familiar template.”

The research for Ranabaali took Rahul to government gazettes and records across cities. As he dug deeper, he learnt lesser-known facts. “There is a lot that we do not know about our history. The massacre of Vellalore, where more than 3,000 people were killed, is one such story. It can be a film by itself. It was worse than the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.”

Drawing from history and using what was required for the film was not easy, he says. The script went through 24 drafts and there were last-minute tweaks.

The women and patriarchy

While Vijay Deverakonda’s portrayal of the titular character of a rural chieftain is widely discussed, the characters of the mother (Rajamma, played by Easwari Rao) and the wife (Jayamma, played by Rashmika Mandanna) have also come under scrutiny.

Rajamma is shown as a patriarchal woman who hides the prophecy about her son from the bride, and expects her to carry forward the family lineage. “My intention was to depict Rajamma as how a mother of a brutish son might have been back then, rather than applying today’s standards of feminism. What Rajamma does is wrong and I will not justify it. My writing was to show her as she is. Jayamma was inspired by my mother and named after her.”

The performances

Rashmika nearly stole the show as Jayamma, Rahul says with a smile. “We felt the same while watching the footage on the edit table.” Rashmika’s packed schedule did not allow room for rehearsals, and Rahul was initially worried if she would be able to pull it off.

“We began with the wedding scene where she arrives as a new bride, with confusion in her eyes. The bigger scenes were filmed later. She is intuitive and picked up the nuances quickly. She has the knack of getting into the deeper emotions almost effortlessly. I would tell her how my mother would react in certain situations. There’s a scene where Jayamma is feeding the cattle and lets her anger show. I told her that when women in Rayalaseema get angry, men back off and wait for them to calm down. I wanted that vibe and she nailed it. In contrast, it took a while for Vijay to get into the groove of portraying a larger-than-life character. Once he found the rhythm, it became easier.”

Plans were underway to release Ranabaali in Tamil, but were deferred owing to film certification issues, says Rahul. He hopes that a Tamil release will soon be possible, since the story is set in the Madras Presidency. “The name Ranabaali also has a significance in the context of Lord Murugan.” There have been requests for dubbed versions in other languages as well, he adds. “The producers have to take a call, since the streaming date comes up in a few weeks.”

Visual palette

When the conversation veers towards the visual palette, Rahul discloses that Lagaan, Swades, Gladiator, and No Country For Old Men were reference points. “We wanted a realistic look with the Rayalaseema architecture, homes built using stone pillars, and the rocky terrain. The Ranabaali house set had 100 pillars, similar to the description I had heard of my grandfather’s house.”

The art and production design teams walked through villages, observing old houses, broken castles and watchtowers. “It felt like time travel,” says Rahul. “Old village homes sheltered the cattle inside the house because they were easy targets during faction clashes. The use of clay and stone helped keep the homes cool in the scorching heat. The black-and-red soil gave the terrain a distinct colour.”

Archana Rao’s costumes depicted the men wearing white handwoven clothes, staying authentic to the region, while vivid vintage tones were chosen for the women’s wardrobes.

The Singanamalli village depiction, Rahul says, was inspired by his mother’s village where the area was divided into ‘kota’, with fortified walls protecting the granary and several houses, and the ‘peta’ area outside the fort with a few houses.

The music

The feedback to Ajay-Atul’s music, particularly the background score, has also been mixed. Rahul explains, “In many of our films, the score rarely stays in the background. Rather, it pre-empts the emotions for the audience. Ajay-Atul took a different approach even for the action scenes. On the release day we noticed some issues with the sound mixing, and sorted them out in a day. These sound mixing issues were also misunderstood as poor background score.”

He adds that in some sequences, the composers wanted to use silence and let the scenes breathe. “In the sequence where Ranabaali goes to Alivelu’s house, there is almost no music till the end. The scene was impactful without the need for heavy music.”

Question of violence

The violence in the film has also been debated, despite Rahul saying that it was toned down following feedback from test screenings. Was the implied violence during Jayamma’s pregnancy necessary?

“The idea was to show how Jayamma did not want the British officer to win by wiping out the family’s lineage. It also connects to Rajamma’s request for an heir early on. The scene that decides Jayamma’s fate was also designed in such a way that Ranabaali has to live under the weight of his decision thereafter.”

As a parting shot, Rahul hopes that the audience and critics alike would take a moment to think about the film’s underlying theme of hunger, coming at a time when the country is going through a Super El Nino. Eager to begin work on his next film, he promises it will be a quick project.