‘Modern Masters: SS Rajamouli’ Netflix Review - A Celebration Party

"When I think, I like to walk around. If I sit, I can't think. I can't think if my car stops. I can only think if my car moves." - S. S. Rajamouli.

This is one of the first things you hear from the legendary director of films like Eega, Baahubali, and RRR during the opening moments of Modern Masters: SS Rajamouli. Produced by Applause Entertainment and Film Companion Studios and directed by Raghav Khanna, the documentary takes these words to heart and develops a momentum so charged that we run from one anecdote to another anecdote, one location to another location, one celebrity to another celebrity, one scene to another scene. Modern Masters almost instantly gets the audience sky-high and keeps it up there throughout its runtime. Khanna might as well be emulating the pace of Rajamouli's films. There are no dull moments, thanks to the constant activity on the screen. But the activities that occur in Rajamouli's films burst out with different flavors and different energies. Modern Masters has simply one single tone attached to it: It looks at its subject with reverence. Rajamouli's warm, serene smile comes with a white halo that makes him look saintly - a movie god with abundant creativity. Rajamouli, though, considers himself an atheist. His work is his religion, and he devotes himself to it with an extremely impressive dedication.

Rajamouli confesses that he is a slave to his story and leaves no stone unturned to get that perfect shot of his choice. We see clips of him showing actors what kind of performance he wants from them for the scene. Jr. NTR mentions how the director used to ride his Yamaha bike to get scenes approved by Raghavendra Rao Garu, after which he used to return to the set to shoot the particular scene. Rajamouli's love for storytelling is traced back to his school days. His stories used to captivate the other students. What kind of stories were narrated by him? Were they simple moral lesson dispensers or mythological epics? Never mind. The documentary quickly moves on and talks about troubles related to the unreleased Pillana Grovi. There is mention of an embarrassing event involving senseless distributors, but it comes and goes in the blink of an eye. The lows of the Rajamouli family are kept at a low pitch - they come across as mere footnotes in this documentary. Modern Masters is more interested in being a "celebration party." Everything here is bathed in sunlight.

During a screening of RRR in Tokyo, we are told that since the audience is not allowed to scream due to COVID-19, they are satisfying their itch by clapping. The images in this documentary, however, seem to be clapping and screaming - they are high on Rajamouli's magic. How better Modern Masters could have been if it had taken a step back from all this bliss and actually dived into the ingenuity of Rajamouli. His Eega is described as a film with a "spectacular thought," but where did this thought originate from? What made Rajamouli say that the story will focus on the revenge of a fly and not, say, a mosquito? During a trip to Bali, Rajamouli came across a statue of Karna and Ghatotkach fighting against each other and immediately decided that an image like this needed to be reproduced in his film (cue a similar-looking image from Baahubali). It's a rare moment in Modern Masters that actually reveals what influenced the imagination of Rajamouli. More such instances would have been nice. For example, what gave rise to that shot in RRR where Jr. NTR and various animals jump from a vehicle? In place of words that could have brought out sources of creativity, we get clichés involving filmmaking. We are told that Rajamouli can do a retake for something as minor as a junior artist smiling during a shot, even though he might be standing somewhere in the fifth or tenth line. He also did retakes whenever Jr. NTR's eyes blinked while shooting a hosepipe scene. What this tells you is that Rajamouli is an assiduous filmmaker - he is hardworking. But then that's true for all the directors who are good at making films. While talking about Naatu Naatu, Ram Charan brings attention to his shaky, twitchy thighs, implying that the coordination you see on the screen is rehearsed and achieved through sweat and a lot of practice. In other words, before putting themselves in front of the camera, actors do a lot of work off-screen. No shit.

Prabhas mentions an incident where Rajamouli slept outside his wife's room because he didn't want to disturb her, and this tells you so much about how much he loves his wife. The discussions related to the craft of filmmaking, however, can be generally boiled down to "Rajamouli does his job painstakingly." In other words, you mainly learn what you can figure out on your own while watching Rajamouli's films (I wanted to know how the director manages to strike a balance between the grand scale and the intimate story, but the documentary merely fawns over the action-fueled spectacle design). And if you have not been living under a rock, you will be aware of all the accolades Rajamouli and RRR got from foreign countries. Modern Masters is filled with anecdotes and praise for the director's filmmaking skills, but this documentary itself doesn't give the genre a new life. Its techniques are outdated, as we get nothing but a collection of real-life footage and interview clips. This documentary about a fiercely imaginative director, unfortunately, doesn't have an inventive bone in its body.

Final Score – [5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times