Obscenity, Handagama and cultural blusterers

Scrutiny by Hemantha Warnakulasuriya

MOVIE: This must be the most powerfully erotic movie ever made, and it may turn out to be the most liberating movie ever made. And so it is probably only natural that an audience anticipating voluptuous feast from the man who made 'The conformist' and confronted with this unexpected sexuality and new realism it requires of the actors, should go into shock.

Bertolucci and Brando have altered the face of an art form. Who was prepared for that?' - Paul Kline the foremost critic in US Paul Kline saved Bertolucci from being a pariah within the art circles and made his film one of the greatest film classics ever made. Until this criticism hit the stands Bertolucci was being hounded by the pseudo moralist and the Italian police.

This single piece of writing made these cultural vagabonds, and pseudo moralist to hide their faces in shame. 'Last Tango in Paris' is now considered the most treasured piece of cinema ever created by an Italian.

We are not far away from re-enacting in Sri Lanka this despicable episode of hounding an artist by the police in the name of child abuse, for the grave crime of altering the face of Sinhala cinema. If not stopped, this may destroy the career of an artist of ever.

In Sri Lanka we do not have critics of the calibre of Paul Kline, and may have wait till the dooms day for someone to expose the myth of these so called puritans and cultural messiahs. This effort of mine is to prevent such an act being performed in Sri Lanka which will earn the wrath of everyone who has some love for cinema and art in Sri Lanka and will be universally condemned as a nation who supports cultural blusterers.

The affect of mental imperialism on the native was far more devastating than colonialism of the white invaders. This shook the very foundations of the cultural moral values of the indigenous people.

Victorian prudery made obscene and vulgar one of the greatest cultural monuments in India the Kajuraho and Konarak temples. They thought the sculpture of the Kajuraho temple, a manifestation of barbarism.

They were so prudish, the anti cultural mercenaries of the imperialist partly destroyed one of the greatest architectural monuments in India, the Kajurahu temples, situated in Madya Pradesh, built by the Chandala Kings. These great cultural monuments exposed the bestial physical desires of men and women and their overindulgence in sex and exhibited the 'Kama Yoga'.

It also enlightened the devotees on the philosophy of 'Tantric Buddhism' and worshipped by the Jaina devotees. The objective may be one way of renouncing overindulgence (Kama sukallikanu Yoga) which would ultimately open the doors for attainment of the highest spiritual upliftment.

The British invaders thought that these monument depicted a society so decadent and their exposure to the civilians would deprave their minds, shock them, finally submit them to such evil and corrupt them and would make them shed their moral righteousness.

Thus, some of the greatest works of art, carved out of stone, ever built by human hands, were destroyed by petty moralists who at that time discerned that only women of low moral would exhibit their ankles. The pervasive obnoxious and evil influence of this prudery destroyed masterpieces of Indian indigenous culture.

Unfortunately, the legal connotation of the word "obscene" has to be found by turning the pages of old tomes, collecting dust in medieval libraries which have the Victorian influence. But today, there has been a resurgence of thinkers and philosophers, who deride such foolish viewpoints and throw overboard such imprudent sentiments of such excessive regard to propriety, modesty or morality.

Psychologists and psycho analysts expound the darker sides of human nature covered by false pretentious veils. They revolutionized the manner in which the society looked at these complex human traits and exposed, experimented and rationalized such seemingly unfathomable behaviour.

The days that sex and nudism was considered indecent immoral and obscene have changed so rapidly within the past two decades that novels, plays and films, which were originally banned, in their own country have now been hailed as great works of art.

D. H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterly's Lover" Henry Miller's 'Tropic of Cancer' and "Tropic of Capricorn" and films like Bernado Bertoluccis 'Last Tango in Paris' were originally banned in their own country and later hailed as masterpieces.

The civilized world has changed the narrow archaic and anachronistic interpretations given to the word 'obscene' by the judges of the Victorian era. Then the West realized that they were enclosed in a festering cocoon, unable to find freedom from the web of moral hypocrisy that engulfed them and they could no longer live with such moral pretence, they finally escaped and found freedom.

The brainwashing of the imperialists, who had inculcated in us a deep rooted false notion about our own culture, slowly relegating us into the dark ages and with fundamentalism becoming the vogue, a few persons, who fought this hypocrisy and fundamentalist outlook with the courage of their convictions and using the medium of cinema as their vehicle, did produce films like liberated the Sinhala cinema.

Prasanna Vithanage's 'Purahanda Karuwala', Vimukthi Jayasundara's 'Sulanga Enu Pinisa' and Asoka Handagama's 'Aksharaya' are against these false pretentious values of the Victorian era. There was an outcry from those who had deep rooted subconscious institutionalized by alien cultural mooring which had brainwashed them like the suicide bomber orchestrated a campaign against these producers and against art and against the truth.

The word 'Obscene' had undergone tremendous change from the time when 'Vedhamaththtya' published a notice extolling the virtues of his aphrodisiac and was changed and convicted for the offensive words contained in the pamphlet, that the medicine would arouse sexual pleasure and no one would suffer from sexual dysfunctional syndrome.

The film "A Letter of Fire", which is the subject matter of the present investigation by the Children and Women's Bureau of the Sri Lanka Police, was produced by him, as a co-production with the French government.

The very fact that the French government has chosen to award a grant to this film chosen from the scripts and other material submitted to the prestigious film academy (Fonds Sud Cinema) from around the world, is itself a unique distinction as it was for the second consecutive year that Sri Lanka won this coveted award, from the French government.

It would be fair comment to say that it was the acceptance of the French Film Academy of the French Cultural Ministry of the contribution to world cinema by my client and the recognition of Asoka Handagama as one of the major cinematic talents of this decade, that made the French government, after careful scrutiny of the basic material, that was tendered to the jury, make such an award.

The police have recorded the statement of the 'child', who had according to information, emphatically told the police that the so called objectionable scene where the child was bathing with his mother in the nude in the bathtub, was taken separately. He has explained that he never saw the actress in the nude. The statement was corroborated by the mother of the child who was present at the set throughout the shooting.

It is obvious to any person, with average intelligence, that what we see on the screen is often an optical illusion. Superimpositions of scenes were discovered at the time when the films were silent.

Technological advancement has made "Superman" fly and "Spiderman" crawl along the walls hanging from a thread.

Similarly, the cinema photographer, with his ingenuity has photographed child and the actress separately. Though, in the film it is made to appear as if they were in the bath tub together at the same time.

Be that as it may, section 286 a (1) of the Penal Code has it that 'any person who hires, employs, assists, persuades, uses, induces or coerces any child to appear or perform in any obscene or indecent photograph or film commits an offence.'

Even without considering the statement of the child and the mother, that they performed separately, the decision on whether a film is obscene or indecent, in the case of films produced for the purpose of public exhibition, is determined by the Public Performance Board.

This film was screened before the members of the Public Performance Board, under section 6(1) of the Public Performance Board, Chaired by Professor Somaratne Balasuriya and was marked to be released with the restriction "adults only".

It must be noted that if the Board thought that the film was obscene or indecent it could have either prohibited the exhibition of the film or deleted the sections of the film which it thought were not suitable to be viewed even by adults. Instead it only censured Universal exhibition of the film.

According to the aforementioned section there is no restriction in employing a minor under the age of 18. The only restriction is to employ a child to appear or perform in any obscene or indecent film.

Today in the modern cinema adult theme which may have been termed obscene 25 years ago is now permitted. The said cultural liberation from the hibernation of the dark ages, has made it possible to remove the fig leave that covered the genitals of 'David' of Michel Angelo and expose it even to the children. Nudity which was then considered repulsive is accepted today as the most beautiful creation of God.

The Bureau has not considered the land-mark judgment in "Helping Hambantota case" delivered by the Sarath N. Silva the Chief Justice on the duties of the police before venturing into an investigation.

Specially the undue haste with which the CID acted. Similarly in this investigations there was no official complaint but only a telephone message, where the alleged victim the "child" has categorically and unambiguously stated, that when the so called objectionable scene was shot he was alone and not with anyone else.

This statement was corroborated by the mother who was present on the set when the shooting took place.

In Sri Lanka in several cases the test to be applied to determine what is obscene is contained in the judgment of Cockburn L.P.J. in Regina Vs. Hicklin 1868 3 QB CAS 360 is often used: The test of obscenity is this: 'whether, the tendency of the matter charged... is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are pen to such immoral influences and into those hands of publications of this sort may fall' the words "deprave" and "corrupt" have been widely interpreted in the past. Byrne J. in the Lady Chatterley's case as follows:

'To deprave means to make morally bad, to pervert, to debase or corrupt. Morally corrupt means to render morally unsound or rotten or destroy the moral purity or chastity to pervert or ruin a good quality to debase or defy'. Penguin Books Ltd 1961 Criminal Law Report 176 and 177.

Lady Chatterley's lover is now regarded as a classic and sold even in the most puritanical and fundamentalist states.

In UK The Obscene Publications Acts 1959 the objective was to penalise purveyors of pornography by making it an offence Section 1 of the Act provides "An article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt person who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.

The Untied Nations convention on freedom of expressions as set out in Article 10 states clearly states that the freedom expression shall include" freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

It is very clear from Archbold and other material the intention of the legislature is to bring the pornographic material including what is published in the internet under the said Act.

The US rapid changes have taken place in interpreting the word obscene specially relating to pornographic films. In Miller V State of California spelt out the manner in which what is termed as obscene in relation to pornographic films are defined.

"The law" must also be limited to works which, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value'.

The reasonable test that could be applied is whether the film as a whole appeal to the prurient interest in sex which is portrayed in a offensive manner but has no literary, artistic, political or scientific value. Section 308a of the Penal Code refers to cruelty to children. Cruelty is defined as assault, ill-treatment, neglect or abandoning a child under 18 years of age.

Those who are orchestrating this campaigns believe that they have a perfect playing field in bringing home charges as the ultimate decision is taken by Court. The main characters is that of a Colombo Magistrate and the other character is of a retired High Court Judge.

There is a false and malicious propaganda unleashed by them for the consumption of the uninitiated that these two characters are defamatory of the Judiciary of this country. But the message in the film is quite the converse. It gives a deep message of the system of justice in the country, where a magistrate gives orders to arrest his own son and issues a search warrant to search his own house and firmly declares that if the son is found guilty he will be dealt according to the law.

The most powerful thematic content of the film is the internal conflict the mother, (the lady magistrate) undergoes in her maternal love towards her son. The love is unique that she considers the son an integral, indivisible part of her own body and the conflict is between her commitment to justice on one hand and her eternal maternal love towards her son.

The story emanates from greek mythology - God Hermaphrodite, the union of man and woman in the one being without the necessity to have sex to procreate and live in peace and harmony. The Grecian Gods, Hermes and aphrodite were the first hermaphrodite.

The mother in the film laments the depth of pain she underwent when the cruel scissors severed the umbilical cord and took away the other part of her life. The depth in which the maternal relationship between the mother and the son is portrayed is a classic piece of cinematic exposition which is rooted in Greek mythology, and philosophy.

The Oedipus complex, which is the male child'd unconscious desire for the exclusive love of his mother, which is the Freudian theory based on the greek myth Oedipus who kills his father and marries his mother Jocasta. It is said that these desires develop in a child around five years and is called phallic stage.

In this film, the mother, who is totally dedicated to dispensing justice, and the director creates the most moving poignant conflict in her by portraying her unflinching devotion to her duty and her love towards her son. When she is accidentally stabbed by the son and dies, she is in peace and submits to her fate as she would not have to violate her principles in finding her son guilty.

Similarly the High Court Judge confronted with his student decides immediately to retire, leaving no room to tarnish the high position he held and becomes a recluse and an introvert. The message is that the judges, whatever their personal life be, would remain steadfastly independent and would not permit justice to be compromised for anyone.

Be that as it may, as a lawyer defending Asoka Handagama, I appeal to the opinionated members of the Bourgeoisie middle class and others in the film industry, who may have lost their directions on culture and morality, even if they do not agree with the thematic content or the manner in which the exposure of the darker instincts of man, not to endorse the steps the Police are taking to bring the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code into play, and arrest and charge an artiste.