Inferno in London

Review: Professor Anura Lekamge

Sri Lankan veteran journalist Arthur U. Amarasena's resolve to venture into the area of his wife Sriyani Amarasena's boundaries of film production and direction has paid him off in his maiden attempt by directing the cine film, Gini Veluma (Inferno).

The movie was shown in London as a premiere recently to a full-house audience at the auditorium, University of Westminster, Harrow Campus in the presence of the Deputy High Commissioner for Sri Lanka, Mrs. Shenuka Seneviratne as chief guest.

Arthur U. Amarasena's broadened responsibility in this production included writing up of the story, adopting it as a film script, writing dialogues and finally running the accountability of directing the film for the first time.

Skulduggery

The story was based on political thuggery and skulduggery by a Junior Minister in the government (Tilak Kumara Ratnayake ) on an eminent medical heart surgeon (Wimal Alhakoon) to take revenge after losing his son following an open heart surgery and secondary infection.

The politician was enraged further hearing upon a tip-off given to the police by the surgeon on three of the minister's stooges who had been involved in a multi-million-rupee bank robbery which brought them to book.

Emotionally devastated Junior Minister approaches his Chief Minister (Ravindra Randeniya) to complain and seek his blessings to put a vicious plan into action with a view to destroying the surgeon's life and the family.

His subtle vindictive appeal gets a rebuff instead of a blessing from the Chief Minister pin pointing another aspect of Sri Lankan political life that one should not generalise and castigate all politicians with the same yardstick as a bunch of uncivilised power hungry lot who have like incorrigible school kids!

Planting drugs

However, the Junior Minister in his own way succeeds in destroying the surgeon and his family by planting drugs in his car with the aid of a pretty nurse (Nilanthi Dias) who works with the surgeon at the hospital with his ministerial muscle power.

Ultimately the blameless surgeon becomes a criminal in the eyes of the Law and is sent to jail for 15 years. Not having satisfied with brutality to that extent, the Minister works on a further step in 'doctoring' some x-rated photographs of the surgeon with the nurse to the surgeon's wife to poison her mind.

During his jail term he finds that finally he has lost everything in life including his own wife and the family. Disappointed, frustrated and saddened by all these factors he loses interest in worldly affairs and becomes a Buddhist monk to seek salvation out of meditating in an isolated retreat in a distant mountain.

Performances

Ravindra Randeniya, Sriyani Amarasena (surgeon's wife) and Cleetus Mendis (Senior Consultant), Wimal Alahakoon, Chaturika Peiris, Nilanthi Dias, Gamini Jayalath (police officer) and Tilak Kumara Ratnayake (Junior Minister) have all contributed their fair share in their individual performances to make the film a success, while Tilak Kumara Ratnayake and Gamini Jayalath (police officer) were most effective to the extent that they were hated by the audience watching the brutality meted out to the surgeon who had gone from England only to serve his country and people with all good intentions, without knuckling under to any external pressures outside his professional knowledge and judgement.

Bottom line

The bottom line of the story conveys several messages to the external real world. Firstly, it highlights the level of corruption and misdemeanour still prevalent in the Sri Lankan politics that has not faded out with the changing hues of political parties over the decades.

It also highlights the vulnerability and susceptibility of ordinary law-abiding citizens when caught up with the high and mighty political power bases.

The cardinal point that drives out of the film is that no Sri Lankan is 'unpatriotic' just because they had to abandon their motherland who fed and brought them up intellectually expecting her children to look after her in return but for the same old corruption, injustice, political thuggery and interference that have become cancerous over many decades.

Although the film tries to balance it out by focusing on a senior minister as a law abiding, civilised and educated ruler, what it portrays on a broader sense is that although it is only a single rotten apple which becomes exposed out of a collection, there may well be other apples in the same bunch which seem to appear clean externally and promising but are rotten within the core from inside!

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