Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana is a banquet of a film. It's long, crowded, grand, and, on the off chance the ACs start to malfunction, is bound to sweat you out. The epic runs three hours and fifteen minutes. It’s gobbled up thousands of crores to mount. It has the world’s leading visual effects house, DNEG, known for Dune and Interstellar, not to mention Brahmastra, handling its imagery. It stars Ranbir Kapoor as Ram, Sai Pallavi as Sita and — in the munchiest performance of his career — Kannada star Yash as Ravana. AR Rahman and Hans Zimmer have drummed up the cranium-shivering score. Released ahead of Diwali, the film is off to an encouraging start in theatres, grossing a reported ₹127.50 crore globally on opening day. And lest we forget, this is just Part 1.
Ramayana, undoubtedly, is the biggest film Hindi cinema has put up on-screen in decades. Producer Namit Malhotra and director Tiwari have bet the farm on world-building, from the squalid netherworld of Lanka to the verdant groves and sumptuous city blocks of Ayodhya. What the film lacks in dramatic momentum, it makes up for with elaborate and screen-filling spectacle, though not all of it is as smooth and cohesive as some would hope. Very often, an action set piece in Ramayana exerts a grip precisely because of the rote and frictionless drama that has preceded it. As one critic noted, the film’s pacing and character developments are suspiciously sluggish, as though by design, so the action-forward second half can leave audiences on a high.
Here are five standout sequences from the film:
Raa-Vaa-Naa
The moody opening stretch of Ramayana is calibrated to tell its overseas viewers one thing: this is a film from the land of Rajamouli. The film begins with a patient, respectful précis of Ravana’s backstory. We see him rise from a destitute slave boy, conduct cosmic penance and transform into an invincible and all-conquering warrior. His solo rhino charge into Kubera’s kingdom makes for the film’s first big battle scene. Ravana single-handedly mauls swarms of infantry, who fan out in clever defensive formations but are battered regardless. Ravana gouges eyes, splits jaws, stabs and clobbers his way to victory. A campy moment sees Yash get stabbed in his torso, then recover and continue fighting unfazed. It's a thrilling three minutes of Baahubali-and-RRR-style butchery. The sequence alone makes you wonder how the film passed the censors with a U certificate.
Leaving
The Ayodhya scenes — Ram and his brothers growing up to be skilled warriors, Vishvamitra's visit, the blessed benediction by the riverside — are the most familiar and least imaginative portions of the film. They feel like snippets from a well-produced television soap opera, not a feature film with personality and purpose. However, there's a turn. After Kaikeyi (Lara Dutta) throws a fit, demanding the banishment of Ram from her oath-bound husband Dashrath (Arun Govil), the film shifts into an emotive gear. Against a dark, lamp-lit backdrop, the trio of Ram, Sita and Lakshman dutifully depart for their fourteen years of exile. A royal chariot splits a sea of weeping followers. The lighting, the composition, and the sadly swirling score make the scene memorable. A measure of scrutiny and communally-coloured cynicism has surrounded AR Rahman's creative choices in the film. Here, though, his signature backing wails elevate the moment profoundly.
Warrior
Well into their treacherous vanvaas, Ram has maintained a stoic restraint, as is his wont. He tells the smitten Shurpanakha, sister of Ravana, that he slayed two of their jungle-dwelling demons purely in self-defence. Even the slashing of Shurpanakha's nose by an angry Lakshman is admonished by Sita and frowned upon by Ram. But the Asuras just keep pushing it, goddammit. After the tag-team of Khara and Dushana give chase to our protagonists and corner them near a cliff edge, backed by an army of snarling rakshasas, Ram summons a mighty sandstorm with his divine boon. The demons get whooshed up in the vortex and, like hitting the all-clear button on the Windows recycle bin, get effaced in a swipe. It's the big hero moment for Ram, and equally for Ranbir Kapoor, who will lead the charge in the film's second part.
Ten Heads
In the Hindi film Sampoorna Ramayana, a charming 1961 adaptation of the epic, there is a sequence where Ravana consults his ten heads before escalating his conflict with Ram. The heads appear via old-world superimposition and spread out evenly on the screen. DNEG, working with advanced CGI and facial capture technology, could have assembled this scene in a heartbeat. Instead, they try something inventive. The camera darts into his left eye as we're granted exclusive access into Ravana's thoughts. It's visualised as a dark zero-gravity mind palace. Ten versions of him appear, of different ages — cooing, cajoling, instigating. My favourite of the bunch was Artistic Ravana, cradling his giant veena and telling his mortal self that he abandoned the holy pursuit of music and is thus condemned to suffer. Yash and his many monster minds are a hoot in this sequence.
Air Attack
This is the most impressive and satisfying sequence in Ramayana: Part 1. When we first glimpse the Pushpak Vimana, the legendary flying machine of Ravana, it's a giant twirling orb against a bright sky. Its intricacies are revealed piecemeal as Ravana successfully abducts Sita and sets sail for far-away Lanka. Jatayu, the mythic demigod bird and doting guardian of Dashrath's family, attacks the airship with a cloud of smaller birds. The airborne fighting and slashing between Jatayu and Ravana is thrilling and propulsive. Almost every shot is relayed from the perspective of the characters: a foundational principle to selling CGI-heavy battles. Just as importantly, the skin textures and physical movements have a solidity and photorealism that is sorely missed in other sequences, especially in the design of the cartoonish Asuras. The Pushpak Vimana sequence gives a glimpse of what DNEG and the teachnical crew of Ramayana are truly capable of. It also makes you wonder why they could not deliver at an equal calibre in other places.