Films like Olangal, Nireekshana, Yathra and Veedu attained critical as well as mass appreciation as he introduced a very different kind of film, one that challenged the mainstream.Īn audience that was used to high drama was now given a taste of realistic storytelling that focused on the complexities of human relationships. The accolades poured in fast for Balu, who won countless state awards, Filmfare awards and six National Awards. He made his debut as director in 1977 with the Kannada film Kokila, which starred Kamal Hassan, for which he won a National Award. Known for his revolutionary work in Tamil cinema, Balu worked as a cinematographer for many award-winning South Indian directors, such as Menon, Sethumadhavan, Bharathan, Mahendran, K Viswanath and Bapu, and shot Sankarabharanam (1980), which is one of the biggest blockbusters and an icon of South Indian cinema. On his birth anniversary, here is a look at Balu Mahendra’s cinematic legacy.Īlso read: Satyajit Ray: Cine maestro & literary genius who could say no to Indira Gandhi, Narasimha Rao I was lucky that I could work with some of the finest directors in Malayalam cinema such as Karyat, P.N.
“It was the best debut I could have hoped for I had seen his (Kayat’s) movie ‘Chemmeen’ and was impressed. He graduated the top of his class and caught the eye of Malayalam filmmaker Ramu Karyat, who asked Balu to assist him on the 1974 film Nellu.įrom there, as they say, there was no looking back. He went on to study cinematography at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. The Tamil filmmaker was bitten by the film bug when he witnessed the shooting of 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai in Sri Lanka. The man to thank for this film, considered one of Hindi cinema’s finest, is Balanathan ‘Balu’ Mahendra.īorn on in Sri Lanka, Balu was a cinephile from a young age. A young Sridevi, recovered from her retrograde amnesia but now completely oblivious to the man she loved, who took care of her while she was ill, made even the most stone-hearted audience well up. Of all the film endings in Hindi cinema, Sadma’s is one of the most heartbreaking.