<div><b><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Indian director S.S. Rajamouli's films are all-singing, all-dancing spectacles -- and he is now a favourite to secure the first ever Oscar for an all-Indian film.</span><br></b></div><div><br></div><div>His three-hour extravaganza "RRR" is a fictionalised story of two colonial-era revolutionaries, filled with large-scale, visual effects-laden action sequences and musical numbers.</div><div><br></div><div>It has smashed box offices in India, wowed audiences from the United States to Japan, and is a front runner for the Best Original Song award at next month's Oscars, having already beaten out Taylor Swift and Rihanna for the same prize at the Golden Globes.</div><div><br></div><div>"When I'm going to a movie, I would like to see larger-than-life characters, larger-than-life situations, larger-than-life drama," Rajamouli told AFP.</div><div><br></div><div>"And that's what I like to make," he said at his office in the southern city of Hyderabad.</div><div><br></div><div>"Nothing holds the heroes back in delivering their action sequences."</div><div><br></div><div>A word-of-mouth hit that has seen moviegoers dancing in cinema aisles, Telugu-language "RRR" has become one of the highest-grossing Indian movies ever.</div><div><br></div><div>It has also introduced the country's lesser-known but prolific southern cinema industry to a worldwide audience.</div><div><br></div><div>India's Hindi-language Bollywood cinema industry has long been known as the world's most productive, but international film awards beyond the festival circuit have largely remained the preserve of English-language movies.</div><div><br></div><div>That changed when Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite" swept four Oscars in 2020, including Best Film and Best Director, after decades when the plaudits for Korean cinema were confined to the critics.</div><div><br></div><div>The only previous Indian Oscars won were for English-language films -- the 1982 British-Indian co-production "Gandhi" and 2008's Mumbai-set British drama "Slumdog Millionaire".</div><div><br></div><div>Now Rajamouli hopes a statuette for the dance number "Naatu Naatu" will pave the way for Indian auteurs to do the same.</div><div><br></div><div>Shot in front of Ukraine's turquoise presidential palace -- before the war -- it features high-energy performances from the two leads as they confront their antagonist.</div><div><br></div><div>"We are breaking ground, but I think we are in very, very initial, initial steps," said the 49-year-old.</div><div><br></div><div>"If you see (South) Korea, for example, the kind of inroads that they have made... we should aspire to do that, all Indian film-makers."</div><div><br></div><div>- 'Unprecedented' -</div><div><br></div><div>Rajamouli was born in the southern state of Karnataka. His father was a scriptwriter who exposed him to the industry.</div><div><br></div><div>His early influences included prominent Telugu directors but he found himself drawn to epic Hollywood films such as "Ben Hur" and "Braveheart", and is a fan of Steven Spielberg and James Cameron.</div><div><br></div><div>Rajamouli's 2015 historical action-drama "Baahubali" -- then the most expensive film made in India -- made him a household name domestically, leading a wave of southern films to the top of the multilingual country's box office.</div><div><br></div><div>The 2017 sequel was well-received, with both movies among the highest-grossing of all time in the nation of 1.4 billion people, cementing Rajamouli's reputation as a blockbuster director.</div><div><br></div><div>He was "pleasantly surprised" by the buzz around "RRR" in the West, he said, pointing to what he called a "lack of maximalist entertainment".</div><div><br></div><div>"There's a section of audiences who wanted that, a celebratory kind of engagement with the cinema."</div><div><br></div><div>Despite appearing on Netflix only two months after it debuted across 1,200 US theatres in March last year, "RRR" has become among North America's highest-grossing Indian films.</div><div><br></div><div>It was "unprecedented" and "a total outlier", said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.</div><div><br></div><div>Audiences continue to flock to packed screenings for repeat viewings -- a January showing at Hollywood's historic TCL Chinese Theatre sold out in 98 seconds.</div><div><br></div><div>Rajamouli's films have been compared to Marvel superhero movies and he said it would "be an honour" to be asked to do one -- but he worries that a major studio would want to involve itself in the production process.</div><div><br></div><div>- Troubling undertones -</div><div><br></div><div>The accolades for "RRR" have also been accompanied by criticism of perceived troubling undertones in the film, including the promotion of Hindu nationalism and hyper-masculinity.</div><div><br></div><div>"RRR" contains Hindu mythology and nationalist fervour at a time when film-makers, mostly in Bollywood, have been repeatedly targeted by Hindu right-wingers on social media.</div><div><br></div><div>Rights campaigners say that under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bollywood stars are facing increased pressure -- particularly minority Muslim actors like Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan.</div><div><br></div><div>Rajamouli grew up in a "deeply religious" Hindu family but is now an atheist and believes that "religion essentially is exploitation".</div><div><br></div><div>He blames criticism of the film on the polarisation of debate in India that does not allow for a middle ground.</div><div><br></div><div>"Any extreme point of view, I oppose," he said.</div><div><br></div><div>"I don't have any kind of hidden agenda... I make films for people who are willing to pay their hard-earned money on the film ticket, reports AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>"I like to get them entertained, make them feel dramatic about the characters, about the situations, have a good time, go back and live their lives."&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>