Malini Fonseka

The living legend of Sri Lankan cinema:

Dhammika Dissanayaka

Continued from yesterday

Sri Lankan cinema started largely as a form of business and later expanded itself into an industry. Within that growing business environment the producer of Punchi Baba (1968) Sugathadasa Marasinghe was in search of a new female face as he felt a fresh face would have a greater charm and appeal and, the doors of cinema opened for Malini.

In this intensely competitive environment in the industry, her selection for its main role splits her career on a dual path. In the sixties the artistes were considered commodities of exchange among the films. They constituted the principal factor in promoting any cinematic work at that time.

Malini did not hesitate to accept whatever the role offered to her which was the main reason for lengthening her list of films. Among them only a few films in which she appeared were recognized as excellent cinematic works. It is with such a contribution that she succeeds in overtaking the role of Rukmani Devi in cinema both as a medium art and an industry.

Malini enters the cinematic scene at a time when competition in the market for cinema was mostly dependent on the ‘star-homage’ paid to the artistes.

Her acceptance of every single role, initially did not give her an opportunity to exhibit her inherent talent which later had a bearing on her career. Since the spectator interest was mainly on the artistes, and above the character of the film, her broad decision had a greater influence on her career later in life.

The ‘star-theory’ that was familiar with the then cinema, placed her standing much above the rest. Foremost among those who advanced her popularity in the industry were the journals on cinema and the competition among such journals.

The events and incidents relating to her private life as well as her life in cinema were so much in abundance to quote and borrow, it helped competition among those journals and magazines.

Besides the films in which she acted, her family and marriage, and popularity of the then leading actors with whom she acted in cinema, she turned out to be a creator of all fascinating and controversial features that attracted the readers.

Does her rise in popularity as a star match with the prosperity of art of cinema earned through her acting? No. Let us satisfy ourselves that it is only an outcome of the backwardness of our cinema.

The cinema that takes the filmgoer to a fantasy world away from earthly reality, advances through her fascinating role of the ‘Star’. At the time, Malini was the most powerful and the most popular film star. She could adjust herself to fit into the consistent demands of popular entertaining cinema.

The filmgoer found a heroine in her in his world of emotions, and she is their lover in their own world of fantasy. The profit conscious investors turned this dream of the people into cash.

The making films with her in the lead role to meet the aspirations of this dream world became a thriving business. That is how the popular as well as entertaining Sri Lankan cinema enriched itself with Malini’s presence on the silver screen.

There are several films in which she was efficacious in infusing life into the spirit of its character with a perfect and objective understanding of the inner soul of the character. Such films form a part of history for preparing the ground for a star to comprehend the nature of a character as an art.

Among those who paved the course for Malini the star, to be moulded into a clever artiste are Dr. Lester James Pieris, Dharmasena Pathiraja, Amaranath Jayatilake, Wasantha Obeysekara, Sugathapala Senarath Yapa, Wijaya Dharmasri and Gamini Fonseka. Parakrama Niriella and K. A. Wijeratne joined them later.

Malini was able to take long strides on the cinema ladder to reach the top overtaking the pioneers in the art of acting in our national cinema. The unique position she enjoys today has been an effortless achievement. Her acting capacity is enormous.

It glows enlightening the immortal pillars of spectator-memory about her talent in the history of Sri Lankan cinema. It is an inspiring experience to trace the heritage of distinctive inborn talent in its unbroken journey of portrayal. The purpose of this brief write-up is to make a refreshing note on her career based on a few selected films which are considered to be excellent works of art.

Malini earns her consecration in cinema with her thespian entry into Tissa Liyanasooriya’s ‘Punchi Baba’ which was released in 1968. Since then she had acted in 150 feature films upto her performance in Prasanna Withanage’s ‘Akasa Kusum’.

Malini makes her entry into cinema when it was oscillating between two different goals. On the one hand was the entertainment element of cinema at its peak.

The main features of the films in this category are that they are based on an Indian story, and hence diversed from the life of the people and the actresses were inclined to follow the acting style and trends of the Indian artistes. Even when an original story was selected the main actress carried the characteristics of the old heroines at the time.

She enjoyed independence either as a wife or a lover. It was an extraordinary human character quietly tolerant of the ill-treatment and weak qualities of her husband or lover, but kind enough to wish him good right through her married life.

Since the film is made to provide entertainment she had to sing, dance and play music. Comparatively, the other category which was called art films had a few films far in between, and such films made an effort to portray the character of a woman realistically and true to life.

What Malini performed at the beginning of her career that struck the filmgoer most was her creation of a woman complete with the combination of these two traits discernible in entertainment movies meant for the joy of common man who patronised cinema.

Malini instinctively portrayed and evinced her talent by drawing the respect of filmmakers who made entertaining films while they did not deviate from the objective of making such films and loved to depend on events and experiences intimately linked to life.

Thus Malini not only prevailed in integrating these two streams of cinema but, also in recreating woman with indigenous traits firmly inherent in her. In other words, she made the dream a reality. She injected human factors into this simple feminine character. Similarly, she altered the range of vision in order to provide rich entertainment.

That was how she became the dream girl of the cinegoers. She as the stars who preceded her was not a star to have provided them with a temporary amusement to enable them to run away from life; but, she made oneself to feel happy by enlivening even a simple character with a meaningful ideal. She domiciled in their minds as the first film star to have performed this charm which held the filmgoers stunned.

Thus she granted every layer of filmgoers with a permanent lady lover in entertainment cinema, an ordinary woman with whom they could identify themselves; also, she was capable enough to carry this image to the art film as well.

Even in entertainment films she co-starred first with such acclaimed actors as Gamini Fonseka, Joe Abeywickrama, Tony Ranasinghe and later with Vijaya Kumaratunga, Ravindra Randeniya etc.

In the presence of such great thespian personalities as Joe and Gamini, her initial performance relegates in to secondary position, but within two years of her journey into cinema she was able to match them as their equals in recreation of various characters.

Also, it is not unjust to mention that sometimes she was able to outwit and outsmart them in enlivening emotional situations. Her marvellous performance is evident if one goes through her films in both Gamini-Malini era and Vijaya-Malini era.

What elements did she possess to have enticed two to three generations of spectators? It is an accepted view that the camera lens loves some figures and rejects some others. It is due to this reason that some artistes of high calibre leave cinema within a short time of their entry.

Malini is one actress netted into a lasting love with the camera. For entertainment cinema the film star should be pleasant looking. Lighting is used to heighten the shine in the image of the artiste. That’s why even when an artiste mourns, she registers in our mind as possessed by a charming figure.

However, this reflection of charm is restricted to a few cinematic angles. Therefore, the cinematographer is compelled to take shots from congenial angles. But, every angle of vision of Malini as well as her whole figure is photogenic, which made it convenient for her to give effect to her cinematic expressions and feelings.

She is not an actress who restricted herself only to facial expressions of emotions. Her flexible limbs as well as the physical structure are instrumental in rendering live expressions. She effortlessly change from one expression to another with explicit charm without shifting into different camera angles.

The grace with which she uses her body and limbs, adds variety and perfection to her emotional expressions. Even if we examine her different roles in different films one may not be able to find a flaw in her gestures. Her versatility in transposition is very much in depth. Her voice full of feeling and modulations give a magnificent dimension to her characters. Her voice is clear, clever and exciting. She is equipped well to discipline her voice to meet the challenges of the character.

Even though she consecrated her acting career on stage, she had no opportunity to scientifically study the art of acting. (Personally I am happy about it as thereby her inborn talents could have been tainted and blunted). Her own experience, sensibility to life, inventions, innovations and the support extended to her by the experts in her field, stood as the guiding factor in her career.

Some of her characters she gave life to, are so convincing that they have become examples for students of acting. There are two other reasons that induced her to success in this arduous profession. One is her total commitment to the profession and the other is the discipline and training she mustered while in performance. That eventually made her a true professional actress.

One may consider that this analysis of her method of acting as unilateral. But there is no alternative to it as there is not a single character in over one hundred and fifty films in which she appeared that could be considered as inadequate. She converted any fertile character into a profile of humaneness and made an ordinary character into natural character. Only other artiste to have excelled in this achievement in our national cinema is Gamini Fonseka.

Malini’s art of acting had been nursed in a unique style that agrees well with cinema technology.

Her greatest asset is her talent to instantly move into character, Malini’s acting means is her emotion-full face which she uses to the maximum to express sharp delicate nuances. A single sharp glance she gives amounts to an expression carrying thousands of words. The youthful look in her, never subsides or wears. Thus most powerful portrayal of expression is epitomised in her facial formation.

Malini is a role model of a Sri Lankan woman living within a male dominated social domain the reasons for which take us beyond her profession. Her childhood, youth, professional conduct, marriage, relationships with towering male film personalities, popularity, politics etc. combined had been instrumental in moulding her as a Sri Lankan model of womanhood.

Acting means re-enactment of life’s experience with a specific goal in vision. For a person who endures life finds it much easier to move into another character. Malini is one who while enduring life had a persuasive overview of the society around her.

Thus Malini’s performance is a re-enactment of experience which was instilled in her through understanding of life and then by re-investment in the society to reap the fruits accordingly.

Her international recognition as an actress for her role she enlivened in ‘Eya Den Loku Lamayek’ at the international Film Festival held in Moscow in 1975 was the first ever international award a Sri Lankan actor or actress had been conferred with.

According to its director the excellent acting artistry she displayed in this film had been subjected to distinct appreciation of the Jury. Mentioning about her performance, a film critic from New York had cemented that in her he had seen a wonderful woman of sorrow, fear and smile.

The international recognition that she gets is its particular by due to her clever representation of the Eastern woman. Yet could we satisfy ourselves with the extent to which her exquisite performance had been hitherto presented to the world cinema audience.

In comparison to the present, then there was no such familiarity with interactional film festivals among us. The world audience in general, had known only Dr. Lester James Pieris’ films as Sri Lankan cinema.

It could be that Malini’s performance was not submitted to proper evaluation at international level despite the fact that we had no proper International Film Festival culture as such. It was precisely the reason why it is important how Dr. Lester James Pieris, a man with sense of world cinema found Malini’s acting capabilities reaching international level.

Even Satyajit Ray, the world renowned filmmaker admired her performance in this film and complemented her performance, ‘What surprises me is the actress I’ve seen around here and the character on the screen is one and the same person. I can tell you this.

“No Bengali actress, however good she may be will ever allow herself to be so disfigured as Malini is in the Sri Lankan film - no, not even in a film of mine.” What Ray found difficult to reconcile are the two images - one the glamorous film star physically present at the Festival and the disfigured face of Ranmenika in the film.’

Dr. Lester James Pieris was of the opinion that ‘However to have made such an impact on one of the world’s greatest directors, particularly one who has excelled in moulding great performances from actresses in his native Bengal viz. Madhabhi Mukherjee, Sharmila Tagore, Mamata Shankar, Karuna Banerjee etc. I should think is reward enough.’

One important factor that does not escape any probing mind searching for Malini’s activities is her discipline within her area of art with an impressive visionary breadth. She did not entertain pre-conceived ideas of building an extraordinary image for herself among the artistes.

What mattered for her was the character into which she breathed life. All what she required was to convince herself that she could successfully meet the challenge thrown by the character. She was open-hearted on her approach to filmmakers. Her particular attention as for the work entrusted to her and not for the person who is behind it.

Malini Fonseka requires no credentials. Such certificates will only reduce her boundless, reasonable capacity to perform. She offered her invaluable subscription as an actress to several films of remarkable quality which yielded a steady flow of delight to the Sri Lankan filmgoers.

She dedicated herself fully for the growth of the Sri Lankan cinema. In brief, her personal life and cinema are not two phenomenon but one, a fact that prompts confirmation among us. Malini Fonseka’s contribution to cinema through her unmatched performance is a noble and splendid offer that could be remembered in deep appreciation from one era to another.

Concluded

The writer is a lecturer, Music Faculty, Visual and Performing Arts University