One Man: Sangagiri Rajkumar plays the whole cast and crew

Sangagiri Rajkumar, who drew attention with Vengayam, has made a film called One Man in the most literal sense available. He produced it, directed it, acted in it, and handled the 70-plus departments a feature normally spreads across a full crew, alone, start to finish, without a single assistant. The film reaches theatres on August 21, billed as a world-record effort.

The one-man rule extends to the casting. “I have played every single character in the film,” Rajkumar says. “When you watch it, each one will register as a separate person. Every scene is built to raise questions: how will this man escape from that one, what trouble will that one cause this one.”

The ambition is not confined to talking heads either. The film packs a helicopter chase, a train ramming into another train, a car chase shot in America, and a sequence where five people survive a leap off a large waterfall. Five people, presumably, all played by Rajkumar.

The best flourish is the proof. Rajkumar recorded himself shooting every scene on a second camera, and he plans to screen that making-of footage at the end of the film itself. The record attempt comes with its own evidence reel, which is more documentation than most crews of hundreds manage.

Industry colleagues who caught a special screening came away surprised and complimentary, by his account. Whether the record gets ratified or not, the pitch is irresistible on its own terms: one ticket on August 21 buys an entire filmography of performances by one man.