Some works leave a lasting impression in the entire career of a filmmaker, eclipsing everything else he or she would go on to do later in their career. For Sangeeth Sivan, who passed away at a private hospital in Mumbai on Wednesday at the age of 65, that work came quite early in his career.
Yodha (1992), his second film, would cement his name in Malayalam cinema as one of the films with the highest repeat watch value.
Despite having done quite a few films in Malayalam and also achieving reasonable commercial success with a string of masala flicks in Bollywood in the 2000s, he could never again hit the high that Yodha achieved.
Although liberally influenced from a Hollywood film (The Golden Child), like many of his other works, the film written by Sasidharan Arattuvazhi had some original humour, elevated on screen by memorable performances from Jagathy Sreekumar and Mohanlal.
Three decades after its release, their repartees from the film are still a part of everyday conversations in Kerala. Sangeeth also brought in A.R. Rahman, whose debut musical Roja was yet to release, to score a wildly successful album for the film.
Early beginning
Son of photographer and filmmaker Sivan (who shot the stills for Chemmeen) and Chandramani, cinema has always been a part of Sangeeth’s life.
Beginning his career assisting his father in documentaries, he was inspired by filmmaker and cinematographer Santosh Sivan, his younger brother, to shift to feature films.
Though his first stint was in Bollywood as an executive producer in Aamir Khan-starrer Raakh (1989), he chose Malayalam for his debut directorial Vyooham (1990), a thriller starring Raghuvaran and Urvashi, loosely inspired from Lethal Weapon.
Fresh from the success of Yodha in 1992, he also made Daddy. He teamed up with Mohanlal again in Gandharvam (1993), which was largely forgettable, but still remembered for its humour around the protagonist’s attempts to stage his version of Shakunthalam.
His film Johnny (1993) won the Kerala State Film Award for the Best Children’s film. Nirnayam (1995), his third outing with Mohanlal, was heavily inspired from Harrison Ford-starrer Fugitive, but it was still appreciated as a well-adapted thriller.
After the forgettable Snehapoorvam Anna (2000), Sangeeth slowly drifted away from the Malayalam industry.
Bollywood stint
By this time, he had marked his presence in Bollywood with the Sunny Deol-starrer Zor (1998). He would later say that it was the technological advances aided by the bigger budgets in Bollywood that made him take that shift.
With the shift, the tone of his films changed from subtle to loud, notable in films like Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne, Kyaa Kool Hain Hum and Apna Sapna Money Money, some of which were commercially successful.
He would return to Malayalam to write and produce Idiots in 2012 and E in 2017, but these were unsuccessful. He also made his presence felt in the OTT space with the psychological thriller Bhram (2019). Just a few days ahead of his passing, he was busy with the post-production work of his next Hindi directorial Kapkapii, a remake of the Malayalam film Romancham.
