One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, had a big night at the Academy Awards on Sunday, as the film bagged several awards during the ceremony and capped the evening by taking home the top honour for Best Picture.

The film was one of the strongest contenders at the awards show. It competed against several other major films, including Bugonia by Yorgos Lanthimos, Marty Supreme starring Timothee Chalamet and directed by Josh Safdie, F1 by Joseph Kosinski, Hamnet directed by Chloe Zhao, The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonca Filho, Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier, Sinners by Ryan Coogler, Train Dreams by Clint Bentley, and Frankenstein directed by Guillermo del Toro.

At the Oscars, the film took home the top prize, finishing the evening with six Oscars in total.

During the ceremony, the DiCaprio starrer was in a head-to-head battle with Sinners, with both films winning major awards throughout the night.

The movie is loosely based on the novel Vineland written by Thomas Pynchon. In the film, DiCaprio plays Bob, a former revolutionary who was once part of the far-left group French 75. His life changes when he is forced to return to action to save his daughter Willa, played by Chase Infiniti.

The film received a total of 13 nominations at the Oscars. Director Paul Thomas Anderson won awards for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, while Sean Penn won Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film.

One Battle After Another had already gained attention earlier in the awards season. It won Best Picture – Comedy or Musical at the Golden Globe Awards, where Anderson also received the Best Director award. Because of its success at the Golden Globes, many believed the film would perform strongly at the Oscars as well.

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When Rohan Utpat and Vinayak Salvi, better known as Rohan-Vinayak, were composing Lalla, they were striving to make a song that was authentic to the gritty world of Subedaar. Now that the number has started climbing the charts, following the Anil Kapoor-starrer’s release, the composer duo isn’t exactly surprised. What about the song has appealed to listeners? “It’s difficult to pinpoint one thing,” says Rohan.  

Vishal Dadlani

If he had to break it down, the composer would peg it to three aspects. “The first is the word Lalla itself,” Rohan reflects, before adding, “Then there’s the string-section melody that comes in between the song, and finally, Vishal Dadlani’s powerful vocals under the fast-beat drums. Those three things together have stayed with listeners. We deliberately didn’t load the lyrics with a lot of melodic movement. Rishi Upadhyay’s [lyricist] song was meant to feel almost like a narrative. Holding back the melody and then releasing it at the right moment helped keep the song effective.”

Anil Kapoor in the film

Subedaar’s background score works on the opposite principle. It knows exactly when to step forward. Rohan recalls that as director Suresh Triveni narrated the story, which is centred on a retired Army officer who has to fight again, the musicians understood that the score would require restraint in places and eruption in others. He explains, “For a large part of the movie, the hero avoids fights. So, the music had to build tension. But when he hits someone for the first time, we kept pure fight sound effects.”

With the track gaining attention, the question arises: can a song become bigger than the movie it belongs to? Vinayak says, “Sometimes a song begins its own journey. If people connect with it independently, there’s nothing wrong with that. Ultimately the effort is to create strong audio-visual storytelling.”

Films that Rohan-Vinayak previously composed for:

‘Nil Battey Sannata’; ‘102 Not Out’ and ‘Lootcase’