‘Julia’
A paradoxical tragicomedy:
Dr. Senarath Tennakoon
The plot of the new film ‘Julia’ has an antithetical structure.
Dilrukshan the only son of a respectable rich family after murdering his
love leaves for London. His father shoots himself and dies. After some
years Dilrukshan returns home and develop a sensual love affair with
Julia, the daughter of a traditionally wealthy family.
|
Charith and Nadeesha as Dilrukshan and Julia in a scene from the
film |
But he was unable to proceed long as another youth Dev who too has
been in London returns home in search of the culprit who deserted and
murdered his sister. Dev goes to see Julia with the view of getting hold
of Dilrukshan. But Dilrukshan has vanished! Dev gets caught by the thugs
sent by Julia’s father, who instead of getting hold of Dilrukshan hammer
Dev just for the thrill of hammering!. Julia is in her early months of
pregnancy because of Dilrukshan.
Now Dev becomes a soft and sympathetic person. He instead of taking
revenge from Dilrukshan makes him marry Julia. But even with that the
film does not come to an end until Dev shoots and kills Dilrukshan.
The broad sweep of the film precludes depth. The events are very
superficially handled. A narrative form of perspective from one point of
view is retained. Unity of action is disturbed on several occasions.
One such situation is the hide and seek scene between Dev and
Dilrukshan. Although there is the key ingredient conflict in this film,
it has not been developed in a forceful manner to keep the audience
glued to the context of the film. The weak script could have been the
underlying issue here.
The characterisations of Julia follow quite closely, the portraits of
the glamourous Hindi films and Tamil films. There are heroes and
villians. Charith Abeysinghe plays the role of Dilrukshan and Sampath
Sri Roshan plays the role of Dev. They have been responsible for the
production and the direction of this film.
Both are new faces. But their performance potentials have not been
able to contribute significantly to the success of the film. Even the
key female character (the heroine), Julia played by the pretty Nadeesha
Hemamali too is just floating in nature.
There is no depth in these floating performances. Although Sriyantha
Mendis performs the role of a thug that too is a ‘cardboard character.’
Only Robin Fernando has been able to reveal his mature and experienced
performance potential in Julia. His role as an upper middle class
wealthy father is quite impressive. |
