📌 Key Points
- Director Rahul Sankrityan defends the ‘Ranabaali’ poster featuring Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna after criticism.
- The director explains the poster’s aesthetic reflects the ‘glamorous’ yet ‘harsh’ reality of the late 1800s.
- Sankrityan describes the actors’ transformation into their roles as if they ‘travelled through time’.
- A Redditor provides context, noting the poster’s style is inspired by vintage Indian photography techniques.
The ‘Ranabaali’ poster, featuring Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna, faced criticism for its unusual look. Director Rahul Sankrityan responded by explaining the poster’s historical inspiration and the actors’ dedication. A Reddit user also chimed in with context.
Director Responds to ‘Ranabaali’ Poster Criticism
After criticism that the poster of Ranabaali ft Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna looked ‘odd’ the director Rahul Sankrityan reacts.
He also added that the late 1800s were ‘glamorous’ but ‘harsh, grounded, deeply rooted in soil and survival’. “But within that world, marriages carried dignity. Weight. Permanence,” wrote Rahul, adding, “The day Vijay and Rashmika came to set in wedding costume, something shifted. They didn’t look like actors playing dress-up. They looked like they had travelled through time. It was instinct. I asked for a simple backdrop. No dramatic lighting. No stylised posing. Just stillness. And we captured it.”
The Director Explains the Historical Context
The director even wrote about how Vijay and Rashmika slipped into their roles, writing, “What moved me most was how both of them slipped into the moment, controlled Time and make it happen. Like a memory pulled from their forgotten trunk. And when it aligns with their real wedding- it feels surreal. Sometimes cinema and life nod at each other. That timelessness — that nostalgia — is one of the strongest pillars of RANABAALI. Some bonds are eternal. And sometimes, I feel this is their marriage picture from their past lives.”
A Redditor wrote, “For those who thought the Ranabaali poster looked odd/ai. These are some of the vintage photos of Indians taken from the black n white era, the reason it looks odd is mainly due to longer exposure time so that the person who’s getting photographed is adviced to pose in either a stiff posture like VD (usually men are adviced to do so) or a casual one or a more feminine one like Rashmika (yet they shouldn’t move much), this is also the reason why the expressions looks neutral/odd because they can’t be smiling and maintaining the same smile for several minutes.”
Redditor Insights on Vintage Photography Style
One Redditor even commented, “They are trying something new in posters… This looks kind of refreshing in posters…. Still people are complaining,” and another claimed, “Put Vijay or Rashmika in anything, people will just start complaining unfortunately.” A person wrote, “i have photos of my great grandmothers looking like that in photos. Rashmika nailed the look. don’t know about vijay’s look as I don’t have any reference for that.
Ranabaali is Vijay and Rashmika’s third film after Geetha Govindam (2018) and Dear Comrade (2019), and their first after marriage.
Rahul Sankrityan’s defense and the Redditor’s explanation add depth to the ‘Ranabaali’ poster, framing it as a deliberate artistic choice reflecting the era and the actors’ immersion in their characters, blending cinema and life.
