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In an earlier interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Nag Ashwin, who produced Singeetam Srinivasa Rao’s final film, Sing Geetham, aptly pointed out his rare distinction — one where he has never repeated himself over the course of his illustrious five-decade career.
Rao, 94, who passed away recently in Chennai, has left behind a legacy that is inimitable in many ways. His love for experimentation, and by extension, cinema itself, is evident in the way he approaches films. In Apoorva Sagodharargal (1989), he reimagined the separated-at-birth twins trope, with Kamal Haasan playing one as a little person. And with Aditya 369, Rao brought time travel to Indian cinema, with Nandamuri Balakrishna in dual roles.
While it might be difficult to single out films from his dance with invention, here are five from the list — by no means exhaustive — that showcase his immense range.
Michael Madana Kama Rajan
If there’s one film that summarises the childlike wonder of Rao, it has to be Michael Madana Kama Rajan. The film, which traces the life of brothers and quadruplets separated at birth — all played by Rao’s favourite muse Kamal Haasan, is a deeply original comedy that continues to draw people more than 40 years since its release. Separated by circumstances but reunited by their differences, it was a brotherhood drama in every sense of the word. The wordsmith arguably set the ball rolling, rewriting the rules of Tamil film humour through his enduring collaboration with writer Crazy Mohan.
Aditya 369
The Balakrishna spectacle, which is said to be one of the first Indian films to explore time travel, gave wide-eyed audiences in the 90s a front-row seat to incredible Indian drama. From the Vijayanagara Empire of the 16th century to a war-torn post-apocalyptic world in the future, Rao made massive, ambitious ideas real on film.
Apoorva Sagodhargal
The theme of separated siblings remains, but in a completely different context. Two brothers, one a mechanic and another a little person who is a popular circus artist, learn family history and tragic circumstances in this drama. The film has tigers, elephants, romance, heartbreak, revenge, and in the middle of it all, a painful tragedy about identity and lost chances.
Pushpaka Vimana
The Chaplin-inspired satire isn’t just known for its feat — a film with no dialogue — but also for registering real-world problems, including India's staggering class divide. Led expertly by Kamal Haasan, who plays an unemployed youth lured into committing identity theft, the film explores this subtext through the lens of a satisfying satire. In an interview, the filmmaker concurred that this was his most personal film. “That’s the life I lead. I don’t want to amass wealth. At the same time, I am not a person who romanticises poverty. Money is important, but that is not everything.
Sing Geetham
The filmmaker’s experiment with dialogue and music symbolically concluded with Sing Geetham. The film, which eventually became his swan song, is rich in emotion and richer in craft. An exploration of a village's predicament — a curse sets off the residents of a mining village to sing all their words — forms an endearing and powerful base for a story about climate change. A fitting end to Rao's journey of perpetual questioning and his enduring desire for change.