Ekamath Eka Rateka:

Love and affection in reflection

Film Review : E. M. G. Edirisinghe

What Emile Zola in his short story 'For a Night of Love' conveys matters not in appreciation of Sanath Gunatilake's Ekamath Eka Rateka as a movie. What inspired him is Zola's short story and what inspirited the filmgoer is Sanath's cinematic work.

What the film reflects in its subtle refined cinematic language is an intrinsic conflict between love and affection. Love is lust and desire which leaves marks of jealousy and hatred while affection remains undisturbed in its pristine purity and mutual understanding. Affection demands nothing in return as what the flower girl displayed to the deformed man (Sanath Gunatilake). Purity of affection to one another in contrast to love between a man and a woman is sensitively reflected in the relations between man and dog. Within this context, the film flows to enliven this realism in life that exists between man and woman wherever they live.

The young woman (Nirosha Perera) desirious of realisation of both mental and physical prowess in contrast to her lawyer friend (Roshan Ravindra) who was reduced to a mere performer by her. She believed herself to be superior to him, did not wish to surrender herself to him either physically or sensually. There was no affection between the two to sustain themselves emotionally and they carried on effectually for physical elation. However, the deformed man who in their midst was deeply in search of love which he thought would sustain him.

Music functional and operational enlivens and enhances the depth of its visual compositions. Its meaningful insertion deepens the effect of vision. When the words and gestures are inadequate to transmit the inner feelings of the deformed man towards the young woman music speaks. Music speaks delicately and emotionally when the deformed man's heart warms with joy at the sight of the young woman with a touching melody that awakens. As she was attracted to listen to his flute music when his physical reaction was exposed her aesthetic reaction to him was repulsive. His sensibility which instantly developed into sensuality was not for her sensitivity. Her materially fortified self was content with her investment in the young lawyer, while this old man's music was to feed her yearning inner sentiments with affection.

Deformed man is denied of affection in office and away, desperately needed alleviation of frustration that was painfully penetrated into his self. His recognition by the clergy is merely formal with nothing to satisfy his soul. He was a joke for all, a humiliation he has realized.

The script is neatly knitted restricting the characters within the movements essential to infuse vitality and variety to the character. Dialogues are precise, apt and clean. For instance, when a young man asked the young woman in the film what did she expect from him after he got married to her. She thought for a while and said "A good...." It meant many things more than what is carried verbally. It was suggestive of several characteristics in her character. For instance, it meant that she did not want to marry him, also that she did not like marriage as such, marriage should mean not 'giving in' but 'taking out' and, woman is no longer a mere toy in the hands of man, and it symbolised the merging trend of social dominance of woman. All that was expressed with just two words which took the audience by surprise.

Figurative visuals in the film are highly expressive and meaningful. The garbage truck was just a casual sight from the chair where the deformed man was seated in office. He saw it and registered nothing; but, later when it knocked down his pet dog and dumped it in garbage, he looked at it as a murderer. Similarly, the sexual act between the young woman and the lawyer friend, was used to portray feminine resistance to be overpowered by man, it is resourceful and convincing. Their affair is unusual with each refusing to yield to the other, the woman in particular sexually, physically and socially. How it had been woven into the character of the woman who resented and refused to accept intellectual and physical dominance of man shows the grip of the medium by the writer.

Cinematography is penetrative in deeply laid angles; the visuals in high angled shots in particular, are impressive and absorbing (eg. the dog running on the road, deformed man being greeted by the clergy on the road) which adds an unusual dimension to the film that accumulates a heavy atmosphere as well as a sharp delineation within an all-embracing atmosphere conviviality.

Damitha Abeyratne in her tiny crispy role is superb. She endears wit a flash of a performance. The main male role performed by Sanath Gunatilake is essentially a difficult role to play which was obviously a challenge to him as the actor, director and writer of the film.

Had he been more uniform in his gait, gesture and utterances, it could have been a rare dynamic performance. Anyway, it is an unusual and a difficult role. Much relaxed and inspiring Nirosha Perera adds life effectively and forcefully in her maiden acreen appearance.

Ekamath Eka Rateka is complex both in conception and construction, but convincing in its composition. Nameless characters indicate that the life the film portrays is relevant anywhere anytime. Its application into any environment is its universality and there Emile Zola speaks from within.