Sangeeth Sivan, director of a slew of popular films including the famous Yoddha, passed away on Wednesday, May 8. He was unwell and under treatment at a private hospital in Mumbai. Sangeeth, who also worked as a cinematographer, was 65 years old.
Growing up in a house full of cameras in Kerala, Sangeeth and his two brothers – Santosh and Sanjeev – picked up the camera early on in life and were drawn to the world of cinema that their father [the late] Sivan, another veteran in photography, had excelled in. Sangeeth took to filmmaking when he turned 30, making a critically acclaimed Malayalam film called Vyooham in 1990 with the late Tamil actor Raghuvaran and Urvashi playing the lead.
Sangeeth is, however, most known for the 1992 film Yoddha, starring Mohanlal as Ashokan, which became a cult movie of sorts with its unusual story line about a gifted prodigy in Nepal that Ashokan rescues. The film stood the test of time for many reasons — for the rib-tickling comedy in the exchanges between the characters of Mohanlal and Jagathy Sreekumar, its cinematography by Santosh Sivan, and most of all for its music by AR Rahman. It was the same year that Rahman made his film music debut in Tamil with Roja. The songs, including ‘Kunu Kune’ and ‘Padakali’, became instant hits.
Sangeeth made two more popular films with Mohanlal in the next few years — Gandharvam, a romantic thriller and Nirnayam, a crime thriller, both infused with humour. He, like his father Sivan, appeared to have a taste for making films with child characters in the lead. Nirnayam featured child actor Shamili in a prominent role alongside Mohanlal. He also made two children’s films during this period, including Daddy that brought Aravind Swamy to Malayalam, and Johnny that won the State Award for Best Children's Film.
After his film Snehapoorvam Anna, Sangeeth took a break from Malayalam cinema, migrating to Bollywood, where he had already made his mark in 1998 with the film Zor (starring Sunny Deol and Sushmita Sen). In the 2000s, he made comedies like Kyaa Kool Hain Hum and Apna Sapna Money Money, as well as thrillers like Ek – The Power of One and Click. He made a comeback in Malayalam in 2012 with Idiots, a romantic comedy featuring Asif Ali and Sanusha. In 2017, he produced his last Malayalam film, a horror flick called E. The Hindi television series Bhram of 2019, starring Kalki Koechlin, is Sangeeth's last as a director.