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| Monday, 15 September 2003 |
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' Ira Mediyama ' in Montreal Review by Ruwantissa Abeyratne On September 6, when director Prasanna Vithanage introduced his film Ira Mediyama (August Sun) to a packed house at the Parisien Cinema, Montreal, he mentioned that the film was about surrogate sufferers of the war who are left behind after their loved ones sacrifice themselves to the war. The movie is about three categories of persons affected by the war: the uprooted and displaced Muslims and Tamils from the war torn north; the soldiers who go to war and their families; and the ones who lose someone near and dear for the war. The last category was represented by a young woman who goes to the North seeking her husband - a pilot in the Air Force - whose plane is shot down and captured by the LTTE. The film is therefore about what we have now learnt to call "collateral damage" of war and its destructive effects .
This was a most forceful and vibrant ending, which left behind a sense of foreboding and a certain enduring intimacy between the characters in their common struggle for survival. A survival which they carry out with Tolstoian passivity, where life meanwhile-real life, with its essential interests of health and sickness, toil and rest, materialism and enjoyment, and its intellectual interests in thought, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions-goes on as usual, independently of and apart from the ravaging war. The film reeks of the indomitability of Russian literature, through cricket commentaries that can be heard in the background with monotonous regularity amidst such powerful imagery as that of a Muslim man, uprooted from his home, dismantling a wall clock to be taken away, to another time, another place. Through the image of cricket, a game which has become a national preoccupation in Sri Lanka and at which Sri Lankans have shown distinction and competence, the film conveys the inarticulate premise that war should be fought on a level playing field but at the same time must not be considered a game, where lost lives are counted in the same manner as runs collected or wickets fallen. Through sinuously subtle cinematic nuances throughout, the film mesmerizes the audience with the Kafkaesque message there is only a spiritual world; and that what we call the physical world is the evil in the spiritual one. The chanting of pirith, the melodious intonations of the Islamic faith and the calming presence of the Christian church are all images that the Director uses in telling us that there is nothing but a spiritual world and this deprives us of hope and gives us certainty. Ira Mediyama brings to bear the realization that in the sphere of pure social reality, man lives as man neither as an abstract interiority nor as an isolated and unique social being. Through a contrived accumulation of single instances, the film makes us hope that should the world ever become a natural and simply experienced reality, as it once were, our now divided reality of societal and natural abstraction would succumb to a new holistic reality that would achieve a homogeneity of a past period. Prasanna Vithanage, though a seemingly modest and unpretentious person, has shown a deep strength of representation in his film akin only to those such as Kurosawa and Bergman, when he blends the diversity of his characters through a profound tendentiousness that makes his point, which is that unlike in the game of cricket, where someone wins and someone loses, in war all are losers. The musical score had the unobtrusive dignity that underscores serious themes in the cinema and succeeded in presenting a heterogeneous blend of eastern and western musical tradition. The piano was soothingly present and noticeable, and was presented solo as well as with the violin, carrying overtones of the musical genius of Marvin Hamlisch. The music added a certain tender dimension to the characters of Saman and Chamari, who remain within a platonic paradigm created for two adults alone in their world but are trying to help one another through the crisis. Saman, who is coerced by Chamari to help her find her lost husband, eventually finds in Chamari an innocent diversion through the difficult trip they both make to the North. All the main characters in the movie are an invasion on our intellect and rush through the entire film without giving us time to move our eyes away from the screen. So intense was my concentration that even if someone moved in the hall, the movement seemed to take place in Anuradhapura or Mannar. It was as though the director had us by the hand and moved us through the North Central Province of Sri Lanka, making us see what he saw, never letting go for a moment for fear of our missing the entirety of his message. The vehemence and aspiration of the message, even for an expatriate who has not been home for several years, was compelling, and the intense awareness of the vibrancy of a people who have borne immense difficulty was quite invasive. However, theories, which are dangerous things, are absent from the film, as is the obvious depiction of death and violence. Apart from one grotesque scene showing a badly wounded woman emerging from a mud hut demolished by aerial bombing, the viewer is spared of being shocked off his seat. The main thrust of the message, I thoug ht, was that the war in Sri Lanka is not a typical war fought by enemies, but rather by sons of an unhappy country who had misunderstood each others' aspirations for generations until the only way out was to take arms against each other. In su ch a situation, the truly unfortunate are those who are left behind to clean up the mess and get on with their lives. Vithanage said to the audience th at he dedicated the movie to all the
"ordinary" peo ple of Sri Lanka for whom the movie was made and
for whom no one seems to give a second thought. Colombo Up In Lights Every kid who grows up watching the movies dreams that someday they too will have their names "Up in lights". This September that dream will come true for almost a hundred past and present Visakhians as they take the stage to present "Up in Lights". The show will take the boards at the Bishop's College Auditorium from the 19th to the 22nd of this month.
Directed by Delon Weerasinghe, this show is a fund-raising project of the Interact club of Visakha Vidyalaya. A percentage of the profits from this musical will be utilized for the re-construction of Chettikulam Vavuniya Vidyalaya and the Gangodawila Nivathana Nivasaya Orphaage. So don't miss this chance to support three very good causes: 1) A night of excellent family entertainment, (2) Helping the underprivileged and (3) Supporting a group of young debutant performers who've worked very hard to bring this show to you. So make a family date with "Up in Lights" on the 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd of September at the Bishops College Auditorium. Tickets will be available at the venue. Sufi Chocolate: Painting and work on paper Sufi Chocolate, a solo exhibition of oil paintings and prints by California artist, Josephine Balakrishnan has been organised by Barefoot Art Gallery in conjunction with California's ART21 Gallery. The paintings in this show use a new medium, pigmented ink in resin as well as traditional oils on paper. The images are described as dreamlike glimpses. Her colour sense weaves both California and tropical sensitivities. She uses visual dissidence, the ability of the human mind to resolve incongruent concepts and materials to reveal meaning and encompasses cultural and secular symbolism with visual imagery reflective of both eastern and western cultures. Josephine Balakrishnan comes from a line of Sri Lankan artistes. She was born in England then raised and educated in the United States. She has been showing in both continents for the past 25 years. Her work extends to multimedia, which was sold in the stores of 22 major museums, including the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center and the Guggenheim Museum. She has been awarded an art residency in November at the Bedford Art Center in Walnut Creek as well as a merit award at the California State Exposition of Art. A Sufi travels a mystical path, by contrast, chocolate is tangible, a physical substance which changes the heart though the body and brain. The artist will be present to answer questions. The show runs until October 17, 2003. |
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Produced by Lake House |
Not surprisingly, Ira Mediyama was a contestant at the finals of the
2003 Montreal World Film Festival Competition. As I left the cinema, I was
struck by the inevitable continuum of the film where it ends with the
three protagonists, portraying archetypes of real life characters and
representing three categories most affected by the war, are shown at the
same location.
This musical has been conceived as an evening of family entertainment
and will feature a collection of songs from such favourites as the Sound
of Music, Grease, My Fair Lady, Chiago, Moulin Rouge, Annie, Blood
Brothers and Mama Mia! The show will have something for everyone - young
and old - which is to be expected as the ages of the performers range from
10 to 25.
