CHENNAI: Veteran filmmaker Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, whose restless imagination gave cinema some of its most inventive films and found a perfect creative partner in Kamal Haasan, died in Chennai on Saturday following prolonged ill health. He was 94.From ‘Raja Paarvai’ and the dialogue-free ‘Pesum Padam’ to ‘Apoorva Sagodharargal’ and ‘Michael Madana Kama Rajan’, Srinivasa Rao pushed the boundaries of mainstream filmmaking, leaving behind a body of work in which experimentation and entertainment comfortably shared the screen.If Kamal Haasan was forever looking for the next impossible idea to put on screen, Srinivasa Rao was among the few directors adventurous enough to travel with him. Their creative association produced some of Tamil cinema’s most unusual films — stories in which a star could play a blind violinist, perform without dialogue, shrink himself into the unforgettable Appu or multiply into four entirely different men.Rao rarely appeared interested in protecting the conventional image of a hero. Instead, he seemed fascinated by how far an actor, a story and the medium itself could be stretched.His early Tamil work Dikkatra Parvathi, adapted from a story by C Rajagopalachari, won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil. His Tamil filmography subsequently travelled through remarkably varied territory, including films such as Chinna Vathiyar and Little John.That versatility was perhaps his signature.
