Anurag Kashyap compares the growing international cult following of SS Rajamouli to that of Bong Joon-ho; describes Malayalam cinema as the ‘Korean cinema of the late ’90s’ | Bollywood News

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, known for his outspoken takes on cinema, censorship, and industry trends, has weighed in on the current state of Indian cinema. He also compared the growing international cult around SS Rajamouli, particularly after the global success of RRR, to that of Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho. “With Rajamouli, there is a whole audience of him that’s getting built since Eega internationally. That’s the same phenomenon with, say, Bong Joon-ho. Bong Joon-ho broke it with Parasite, but his best film was Memories of Murder,” he explained. “See, Baahubali couldn’t break out because of its duration and length, but yes, every cinephile across the world has seen it. RRR, length-wise, duration-wise was perfect, with less song and more action sequences. It was bound to become that breakout film for Rajamouli.”
He recalled predicting the film’s success even before its release: “I said it much before RRR released, that RRR will be that film that will break out from India because it was building up. I know that because I travel to film festivals. I’ve had filmmakers from Belgium, from Switzerland, from across wanting to know more about Rajamouli. I know two filmmakers who made Blood for Dracula and one more, they came down to Mumbai, and I took permission from Rajamouli and they visited the sets of RRR and spent one week there.” According to him , Eega introduced Rajamouli to the international filmmaking community, Baahubali made him a name among cinephiles, and RRR expanded his reach far beyond those circles. “He first became big in the filmmaking world with Baahubali, then larger in cinephilia, and with RRR, he reached out to the audience beyond cinephilia and the filmmaking world,” he told Baradwaj Rangan in an interview.
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Anurag also praised the ongoing evolution of Malayalam cinema, likening it to the rise of Korean cinema in the late ’90s and early 2000s. “There’s a new Malayalam cinema that I find parallels with Korean cinema, like how Korean cinema was evolving in the late ’90s and early 2000s. That’s what has been Malayalam cinema right now. They are taking up ideas that are not rooted but making them rooted, like, they are making films that are not their culture, but somehow fostering culture into it or finding culture into it and making it rooted.”
He cited Rifle Club as an example, saying, “When I did a Rifle Club, from the early silent movies to Hunger Games, there was a glimpse of all these films which were influential. So it’s like parts of these films became Rifle Club.” Speaking about the depth of cinematic knowledge in Kerala, he said, “Most of the Amal Neerad films are influenced The Godfather, various stakes of it. So their influences vary from the far-off cinema they’ve seen from across the world. Cinephilia in Kerala is very high. They are genuinely brokers called Godard and Lenin, and one of them is a filmmaker. So cinephilia is very high and they are trying to find their stories in the subculture.”
In contrast, he expressed concern about the current state of Tamil cinema. “Whereas Tamil, they are mostly seeing the blockbuster cult films. They are just borrowing from there, they are just dotting the big director blockbuster cult films. They are not watching films made in languages they are not familiar with or not played big at a festival or has not been Oscar-nominated.” On Telugu cinema, Kashyap acknowledged its dinct direction. “They are creating their own mythology. They are expanding, or borrowing, rehashing, or repeating their own mythological world.”
As for Kannada cinema, Anurag admitted he hasn’t seen much recently. “The last very, very good Kannada film I saw was Rama Rama Re… and then Natesh Hegde’s Pedro. I have not seen a lot of Kannada films recently.”