The past film year 2022 closed with one last controversy under his arm – not to vary. This came hand in hand with the choice of ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’ as the best film in history according to a list made by Sight & Sound magazine based on the votes of a large group of filmmakers.
Absolute calm. Today we are not here to go back down into the mud and discuss whether Chantal Akerman’s title deserves recognition or, on the contrary, it is a three-odd hour toston. We are going to take advantage of this context to tell an anecdote derived from the tapes chosen by HH Rajamouliresponsible for the spectacular ‘RRR’, available on Netflix.
Wallace to the Delhi
These include feature films as diverse as ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, ‘Disney classics ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Aladdin’, and the Mel Gibson works ‘Apocalypto’ and ‘Braveheart’. It is precisely the latter, the film that inspired one of the most prominent scenes and songs in the extensive footage of Rajamouli’s Indian epic in which Bheem’s character is tortured in a Delhi square while singing the song ‘Komaram Bheemudo’.
In an interview with The New Yorker, the Amareshwara Camp filmmaker stressed that, despite what the passage may suggest, not based on Gibson’s Biblical epic: “In fact, I didn’t like ‘The Passion of the Christ’. It was too violent for me, at least at the time. I couldn’t watch it in one sitting”. Instead, it wasThe interpretation of the feat of William Wallace the one that inspired him.
“The climax of ‘Braveheart,’ not ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ was the source of inspiration for Bheem’s song… I remember the end of ‘Braveheart,’ when we get to see the hero [William Wallace] being tortured and eventually killed. It screams ‘Freedom’, and when the movie ended I didn’t feel sad. I was very moved. I felt my spirit lift. You can see the pain in his face, how he clings to the strength within him to say what he wanted to say, even if it was just one word. It had a huge impact on me.”
Let’s hope that this Sunday, Rajamouli and his team get the recognition they deserve by taking the Oscar for Best Song for ‘Naatu Naatu’.