RRR's Naatu Naatu Won the Golden Globe on 10 January 2023 and the Oscar for Best Original Song on 12 March 2023, the First Song From an Indian Film to Win It

On Sunday, 12 March 2023, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave the Oscar for Music (Original Song) to “Naatu Naatu” from the Telugu film RRR, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. NPR reported it as the first song from an Indian film to win the prize. The Academy’s page credits the music to M. M. Keeravani (the Academy and the Government of India’s Padma list spell it Keeravaani) and the lyric to Chandrabose.

The four other nominees were “Applause” from Tell It like a Woman, “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick, “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and “This Is A Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once. Jimmy Kimmel hosted the ceremony.

The Golden Globe, the Critics Choice award and the Oscar

The Oscar followed two other awards for the song in 2023. At the 80th Golden Globe Awards on 10 January, the date on the Globes’ own interview page with Keeravani, “Naatu Naatu” won Best Original Song in the Motion Picture category. The Globes’ list of nominees shows the other four: “Carolina”, “Ciao Papa”, “Hold My Hand” and “Lift Me Up”. RRR was also one of five nominees for Best Motion Picture in the Non-English Language category, which went to Argentina, 1985.

Five days later, at the 28th Critics Choice Awards on 15 January, the Critics Choice Association’s list marks RRR as the winner of Best Foreign Language Film and “Naatu Naatu” as the winner of Best Song, crediting Keeravani and Chandrabose as writers and Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava as performers. The film was also nominated there for Best Picture, Best Director (S. S. Rajamouli) and Best Visual Effects.

At the Oscars the song was performed live. The News Minute reports that Sipligunj and Bhairava sang it and that Deepika Padukone introduced it. NPR says the songwriters, Keeravani and Chandrabose, received the statuettes. The same evening the Academy gave its documentary short film award to The Elephant Whisperers, credited to Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga.

New India Samachar, a Press Information Bureau publication, records that Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Keeravani, Chandrabose and the team, and that both Houses of Parliament congratulated the winners.

Who is credited, and what the Government of India recorded

The Ministry of Home Affairs’ list of Padma Awards for 2023, announced on 25 January, includes “Shri M M Keeravaani” under Art, Andhra Pradesh, among the 91 Padma Shri awards. In August the same composer won a National Film Award for RRR in the Best Music Direction category, for the background score.

Chandrabose’s National Film Award in the same edition was for a different film. The Ministry’s list gives Best Lyrics to Chandrabose for the song “Dham Dham Dham” in Konda Polam.

NPR’s Goats and Soda desk notes that “naatu” means raw or rustic in Telugu, a language it says some 81 million people speak in southeastern India.

Six National Film Awards, announced on 24 August 2023

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting announced the 69th National Film Awards on 24 August 2023. Its release, headed “for the year 2021”, lists six for RRR:

• Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, with producer DVV Entertainments LLP and director S. S. Rajamouli named, and ₹2,00,000 each.
• Best Male Playback Singer, to Kaala Bhairava for the song “Komuram Bheemudo”.
• Best Music Direction (Background Score), to M. M. Keeravani.
• Best Special Effects, to V Srinivas Mohan.
• Best Choreography, to Prem Rakshith.
• Best Action Direction (Stunt Choreography), to King Soloman.

NPR credits Prem Rakshith with the choreography that made the song’s video a viral hit.

What RRR is and how it did

RRR is a Telugu film directed by S. S. Rajamouli and produced by DVV Entertainments LLP, according to the Ministry’s release. Silverscreen India gives its release date as 25 March 2022. Sam Wigley of the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound describes it as set in 1920s India under British rule, with N. T. Rama Rao Jr. as the revolutionary Komaram Bheem, Ram Charan as the police officer Alluri Sitarama Raju, and Ray Stevenson and Alison Doody as the British governor and his wife.

On 11 April 2022 Silverscreen India reported that the makers said the film had earned ₹1,000 crore (₹10 billion) worldwide, the third Indian film to reach that mark after Dangal (2016) and Baahubali 2 (2017). That is the makers’ figure, and trade outlets count box office differently. NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour called it one of the most expensive and highest grossing Indian films and the most-watched non-English-language film on Netflix, as of July 2022. Tuput’s piece on Aamir Khan covers Dangal and its China box office.

WION reported on 10 January 2023 that Rajamouli said the “Naatu Naatu” sequence was shot in Ukraine at a real location, which the outlet identifies as the Mariinskyi Palace, the Ukrainian president’s ceremonial residence.

Alluri Sitarama Raju, the man behind Ram

Alluri Sitarama Raju was born on 4 July 1897, according to The News Minute, and is widely known as Manyam Veerudu, the hero of the forest. He led the Rampa Rebellion from August 1922 to May 1924 against the Madras Forest Act of 1882, which barred podu (shifting) cultivation and restricted the movement of tribal people.

The News Minute says he began with bows and arrows and later led attacks on police stations to seize weapons, that the British offered a reward of ₹10,000 for his capture, and that he was captured and killed on 7 May 1924.

On 4 July 2022, his 125th birth anniversary, the Prime Minister’s Office says Narendra Modi launched a year of celebrations at Bhimavaram in Andhra Pradesh and unveiled a 30-foot bronze statue. The release also lists the restoration of his birthplace at Pandrangi, the renovation of the Chintapalli police station and the construction of the Alluri Dhyana Mandir at Mogallu.

Komaram Bheem, the man behind Bheem

Komaram Bheem was a Gond tribal leader from the Adilabad region, in what was then the Nizam of Hyderabad’s territory. The News Minute says he was born around 1900 at Sankepalli, made the village of Jodeghat his base and led guerrilla resistance against the Nizam’s army from 1928 to 1940. It credits him with the slogan “jal, jangal, zameen”, meaning water, forest, land, which Adivasi movements still use. For how that state came into the Indian Union, see tuput’s account of Operation Polo in 1948.

He was killed in a police attack on Jodeghat in October 1940. The News Minute’s header gives 14 October as the date of his death, while its text places the attack on Jodeghat on 18 October, so the exact day varies even within one source.

What the film invents

Rajamouli told Sunil Patel of the Letterboxd Journal, “RRR is not a historical film.” Cornell Cinema’s screening note says the two men never met in real life, and The News Minute says there is no account of Bheem meeting Raju, though Bheem reportedly heard of him while working in Assam. The friendship at the centre of the film is Rajamouli’s invention.

Wigley of Sight and Sound wrote that the film invents the friendship and gives the pair superhuman abilities. He called the film bloated and nationalistic while praising its energy and its action and musical sequences.

Earlier Indian films at the Oscars

The Academy’s earlier recognition of Indian cinema is covered in separate tuput pieces. Mother India was nominated for the Foreign Language Film award at the 30th Academy Awards on 26 March 1958, and Lagaan was one of five nominees in the same category at the 74th, on 24 March 2002. A. R. Rahman won two Oscars at the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 2009, as tuput’s profile of him sets out.