Delowak Athara :

Tony Ranasinghe at his best

Asoka N. Pathirane

ACTING: It's true Tony Ranasinghe was given a rousing and a colourful gesture of appreciation by Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation a few days ago. A few weeks before that many film fans would have had the rarest of opportunities to watch Lester James Peries's classic movie "Delowak Athara" shown on TV on Sunday on Rupavahini, a film with a straight forward conflict even a 5-year-old would understand and enjoy.

The film was released in 1966 and as a youngster I had the privilege of watching it eight times that I was so fascinated by Tony Ranasinghe, my idol during the mid sixties, who came up with one of the most natural performances any actor in the Sinhala cinema ever since the entry into the celluloid world of movies.

Lester's movies in the calibre of Gamperaliya, Ransalu together with Rekawa and Sandesaya had different themes and plots to venture into the hearts of the audiences.

I was for a moment lost in the wilderness whether this handsome young actor playing the role of Nissanka Wijesinghe, an illustrious son of an affluent and elitist family living in the luxuries of Colombo 7 or Cinnamon Gardens was really acting or coming up with a real life drama.

He peddles the movie into thrilling moments of character depicted as if he was never in front of the camera of Willie Blake. The dialogues pretty well complimented the character of Nissanka in agony and ecstasy.

Him giving his bit of a mind to Shirani (Jeevarani) to prove his innocence and his begging as a child to Chitra (Swineetha) to stand by him to save the domestic (Somapala Dharmapriya) and most of all the locking horns with his parents (Iranganie and JBL) made all of us proud of the young actor.

I salute the great Lester James for selecting Tony as I still cannot come to terms that any other actor would have done it as a "natural". In terms of Sociology, Tony is a "Natural Man". It was indeed an Oscar winning performance.

Here's to you Tony Ranasinghe! You had made our lives go back 40 years and made us all feel 40 years younger.

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