It’s never easy to adapt a piece of history into a full-length feature film that educates and also engages, especially when the subject involves human suffering on a devastating scale. The primary challenge lies in recreating the horrors of the past, while ensuring that the human stories at the heart of the tragedy resonate with audiences long after the film ends.
Director Rahul Sankrityan attempts this with Ranabaali, a period action drama set against the backdrop of the Great Madras Famine of 1876–78. Starring Vijay Deverakonda as Ranabaali and Rashmika Mandanna as his wife, Jayamma, the movie explores this colonial exploitation and how one man becomes the saviour of the people.
The Great Madras Famine was one of the worst famines in colonial India, affecting large parts of the Madras Presidency, Mysore and the Deccan, as drought, crop failures and colonial economic policies contributed to widespread starvation. Thousands of people died due to severe starvation and disease, and the response of the British administrators was deemed a failure. Ranabaali explores this devastating period and portrays the cruelty of British colonial rule, including the diversion of food grains while people in India struggled to survive.
It’s in this scenario that warrior Singanamala Bobbili Ranabaali (Vijay Deverakonda) rises against the British oppressors, in particular Commissioner Hector (Arnold Vosloo), who has taken it upon himself to ensure that he exports as many food resources as possible to win the favour of the Crown, even as people in India starve. The director narrates how this exploitation leads to a rebellion led by Ranabaali, placing him at the centre of a larger struggle for justice.
Director Rahul Sankrityan’s screenplay falls short as the narration is very slow, pacing is uneven and it doesn’t offer any novelty to the audience in terms of period dramas set during the colonial era. The Great Madras Famine is interesting as a backdrop since the screenplay is about anger, survival and rebellion but ultimately, the main drivers of the story end up being the heroism of Ranabaali and the repetitive cruelty of the British. While the director has ensured scale in this period film, the emotional depth needed to bring alive the suffering of the people is less convincing.
And the excessive violence and distressing visuals make the film more disturbing than moving. For instance, the film depicts the deaths of starving people in (unnecessarily) graphic and painful detail. While these scenes convey the horrors of the famine, a more sensitive approach could have helped audiences connect with the victims and understand the magnitude of their suffering. Even some of the scenes with Jayamma in the second half are very distressing. The intention seems to be to shock viewers with these visuals, and it does – but it doesn’t endear them to the story, unfortunately.
Even where the confrontation between Ranabaali, the people and the colonial rulers is concerned, there is excessive graphic violence in the film. Again, these sequences were probably meant to convey the brutality of the regime and the intensity of the rebellion, but on repeat mode, it’s more numbing than impactful. The first half of the film is better than the second half of the film because it establishes the historical setting and the central conflict. The second focuses on the repeated clashes between Ranabaali and the British, and it becomes tedious. By the time the film ends, it’s an exhausting watch, and the human tragedy ends up being overshadowed.
Vijay Deverakonda has not had a major hit in recent years, and he has clearly invested a lot of himself in Ranabaali. However, one wonders if this was the right role for him at this juncture. While the Arjun Reddy star brings the physicality and intensity required of a warrior taking on the British, the character needed greater emotional depth and nuance to make a lasting impact, which the writing misses.
Vijay is totally committed to the role, but Ranabaali ended up being all about heroism, and it becomes a missed opportunity for a character that could have been explored in depth. Rashmika Mandanna brings much-needed relief and warmth as Jayamma, and her scenes with Vijay add colour to an otherwise depressing narrative. Again, her character could have been written with greater agency to give her a stronger role in the film’s narrative.
Technically, the visuals of the movie by Jishnu Bhattacharjee and Nirav Shah remind us a lot of director Pa Ranjith’s Thangalaan. The scale and visual grandeur expected of a period drama are showcased well, and they’ve captured the bleakness of the famine and the brutality of the colonial era. The film could have been trimmed down by at least 20 minutes from its three hours by editor Karthika Srinivas, as some scenes were just unduly stretched and didn’t add value to the narrative. The music and BGM by Ajay-Atul are quite forgettable.
Overall, Ranabaali is an ambitious film that falls short in execution and ends up being a highly disappointing cinematic experience.