The two-part “Baahubali” saga remains structurally unchanged when combined into “The Epic.” But in watching the whole story at once, the extended proximity of past and present allows Prabhas’ double role to feel more like sides to the same character separated by a generation — or like a king reborn to enact vengeance against Bhallaladeva. Meanwhile, the widescreen action frequently peaks with slow-motion tableaus and overwhelming crescendos akin to “The Lord of the Rings.” In Rajamouli’s cinema, violence is a dharma — a sacred duty — and there’s no more appropriate place to channel the ritualism of this uncomfortable instinct than in a tale of inheritance, writ large as a war film that borrows set pieces from “Ben-Hur” and turns them cheer-out-loud ridiculous by adding spinning blades to the chariots of antiquity. These dynamics, in totality, make it all the more difficult to separate “Baahubali” from the ongoing systemic atrocities of the milieu in which it was birthed, wherein the aforementioned Hindu epics are cast as factual history, and used as justification for violent oppression — the kind treated here as a perquisite to rule.
Author: Siddhant Adlakha
Published at: 2025-10-28 21:45:00
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