Rajesh Pillai was one of the few from the new crop of Malayalm film directors who quickly made a mark for himself. His path-breaking thriller Traffic, released in 2011, grabbed the attention of one and all, with its deft handling of a multi-layered narrative.
However, by the time Traffic was released, Pillai was already one film and six years old in Malayalam cinema. A Kunchakko Boban-Bhavana starrer Hridayathil Sookshikkan was released earlier in 2005, but had not fared well at the box office.
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One reason for Traffic's huge success was that Pillai used this six-year gap to garner the necessary resources for the film. The film is noted for its hyperlink format and is considered as the one of the defining movies in the new wave of Malayam films. The multi-layered narratives that seamlessly blended with different plots turned out to be a marvelous experiment, garnering both critical and popular acclaim.
The success of the film led to its remakes in Tamil (Chennaiyil Oru Naal), Kannada (Crazy Star) and in Hindi (Traffic). Pillai was especially adept at effectively bringing to screen the various shades of human emotions. This was evident in all his films including Mili, which dealt with simple and delicate emotional nuances and his latest flick Vettah, which explored the unknown realms of the human mind.
Despite the complexities involved in making such films, Pillai managed to bestow a stamp of distinctiveness in all of his works.
But Pillai was frequently tormented by various ailments. Suffering constantly from liver and stomach problems, he mostly lived on juices and often reached shooting locations straight from hospital rooms.
Rajesh Pillai's untimely exit has robbed Malayalam cinema of a rising star who had showed a huge promise.