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Wednesday, 8 June 2011

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Government Gazette

Lester James Peries Foundation launch tomorrow:

The legendary film-maker

This event pulsates with an intriguing nuance. The explanation is starkly simple. Both Lester James Peries and his versatile spouse Sumitra Peries, are already well established and solidly entrenched as venerable 'Foundations', in the cultural life of Sri Lanka.

Given this background, the official launch of the Foundation, is in effect, the formalization of a long - held mass credo.

To fully appreciate why Lester James Peries deserves this distinction of having a Foundation in his name, one has to go beyond the cliches that usually clutter, many a discourse about him.

To begin with, it seems quite appropriate to itemize some of the outstanding contributions he has made to Sri Lanka's national cultural heritage.

Lester James Peries introduced a professional elegance to the business of film - making in Sri Lanka, going counter to the shabbiness that generally prevailed in that field, prior to the appearance of his 'Rekawa' (Line of Destiny, 1956). The effort to instil the 'Sinhala feel', (the indigenous sensitiveness) into Sri Lankan cinema was initiated by Lester James Peries, when he based his films firmly on themes, deeply rooted in our native soil.

In the oft-quoted phrase, the revolutionary poet and aesthetic guru T.S. Eliot declared, that the purpose of criticism, is the "Elucidation of Works of Art and the Correction of taste".

Cultivated a taste of quality

Most people tend to overlook the fact, that Director Lester James Peries, waged a valiant battle - single handedly at first - to correct the cinematic tastes of the Sri Lankan film-goers, who were fully addicted to the popular entertainment film, deriving from the widely - prevalent tinsel-dazzle formula. Director Lester James Peries weaned the Sri Lankan film - goers, off these soul-searing formula films and cultivated in them a taste for quality cinematic works that discuss significant human issues and psychological snarls. He brought into being, a keen coterie of film aficionados who looked on Lester Films with the ardour of the followers of a close cult. These included Reggie Siriwardene, Tissa Abeysekera, A.J. Gunawardene, Benedict Dodampegama-among many others. In turn, these too, influenced Sri Lanka's thoughts on cinema - one way or another.

Lester elevated Sri Lankan cinema to global heights. This resulted in the pronouncing of Lester James Peries' name with the same hushed tones, as those of such other stalwarts like Akira Kurosawa, Satyajith Ray and Ingmar Bergman. For several decades now, Director Lester James Peries has decidedly been the 'Cinema Establishment' of Sri Lanka. In any field, people respond to an Establishment in one of two ways. They may resent it, revolt against it or denounce it. Or else, they would adore it, admire it, esteem it or emulate it. Whatever may be the attitude adopted, a well - entrenched establishment, generates the Dynamism that ensures progress.

No worthwhile discourse on cinema is possible, without Lester's name assuming centre - stage in that kind of colloquy.

For ages, Lester campaigned for the setting up of a National Film Archives, to preserve our indigenous cinematic heritage, enabling the in-depth study of cinema, especially by those in the younger generations, who have the duty to protect and perpetuate our cinema tradition.

As is well-known, Lester's own tradition of creativity, is the outcome of an assiduous pilgrimage. At a very early age, his doting father Dr. James Francis Peries, gifted him an 8mm Kodasko Projector, that ran Charlie Chaplin's silent movies. This early cinematic experience got deeply embedded, in child Lester's mind, no doubt. His later urge for cinematic creations goes back to the late 1940s when he was very young and living in London.

For him and for a like-minded group of young enthusiasts, the cine'-camera became an absorbing toy. This gave them an instrument to impose a semblance of visual discipline upon the disarray of diffuse experiences of their youthful days in a cosmopolitan urban centre, far away from home.

Documentary genre

Peries' initial cinematic efforts were exclusively in the documentary genre. But they were instructive. This erratic progress in the documentary medium was a fitting apprenticeship for a talent whose 'Line of Destiny' was eventually to lead him to glorious creative heights in fiction film.

His return to Sri Lanka, which was to have a far-reaching effect on the course of Sri Lanka's cinema, was largely due - strangely enough - to an expatriate who headed Sri Lanka's Government Film Unit at that time.

The person in question - Ralph Keene - was so persuasive, that Lester came back home and joined the unit. He plunged into documentary film making with zest and zeal and created a body of documentaries, that still remains pioneering works in this genre in Sri Lanka.

The documentary period, in Lester's evolution made him appreciate how resource -rich Sri Lanka was, for the film-maker.

The locations impressed him, especially after his recent sojourn in the West. Since he was looking at his native land as an outsider, because of his absence from home, the exotic in our culture - the fresh appeal of our way of life, began to entice him.

When he travelled through Sri Lanka, armed with the Government Film Unit's cameras, he discerned details of the country' s landscape with the keen perception, nurtured by his documentary discipline.

First-ever Sinhala film

The central event that was to determine his future career took place in January 1947, when the first-ever Sinhala film was screened to the massive enthusiasm of Sri Lankan film - goers. For the audiences of Sri Lanka, the novelty of a film speaking Sinhala, was an overwhelming experience.

But, soon the novelty wore off - partly because the country's compact society tends to be much more critical than the amorphous audiences that have been the main-stay of the popular South Indian films for decades.

The theatricality of the presentation and the cloying artificiality of the story-line of the pioneering Sinhala films began to jar the sensibilities of Sri Lankan film - goers in the first few years of Sinhala Cinema.

Peries took his film - making into a village and allowed a portion of it to happen in that rural setting, enlisting real villagers too, to play a minor role or two.

Still the outsider in the indigenous culture of Sri Lanka, Lester managed to capture at least a few authentic accents of the idiom and the rhythm of the folk who inhabited the traditional village.

To my mind, it is the sure eye of the documentarist, that will discern with alacrity the telling detail that so precisely profiles a sentiment or an individual.

This is what enabled Director Lester James Peries - in the first instance - to come to some realistic terms with his village in 'Rekawa' (Line of Destiny)

In retrospect, we might see that Peries may have missed some of the finer nuances of the intricate relations, that keep a traditional rural community ticking.

Firm place in cinema

But, in Rekawa, he began his exploration, which led him, years later, in Gamperaliya (Changing Village - 1964) to achieve a much more intimate entry into the ways of life of a village as it goes about its business of daily living.

Years later when his Gamperaliya enabled Lester to establish himself as a force to be reckoned with, he acquired a name, a fame and a firm place in cinema, with a distinct 'imprint' of his own. He could no longer fail, but only fluctuate.

When he won the Golden Peacock Award in India in 1965, Director Lester James Peries, elevated Sri Lankan cinema to the International Cinema Scene.

In the 64-year span of Sri Lankan Cinema, Gamperaliya is still a climactic work. It represents the seamless fusing of Cinema with the quintessential in the Sri Lankan way of life - rural innocence and candour and the disintegrating touch of urban dynamics.

Gamperaliya is totally cinematic in concept and execution. The script is derived from Martin Wickremasinghe's novel, which, without any doubt, is the best known work of fiction in Sinhala.

Director Lester's remarkable personal achievement as a film-maker in 'Gamperaliya', is that, he could visualize the story-material entirely in terms of sight - and - sound metaphor, as a stark counterpoint to its literary version.

Director Lester James Peries' cinema philosophy is characterized by a cautious, non-confrontational stance. He may deal with vital socially relevant issues at times, but these are viewed with such detachment and objectivity that not even a trace of partisanship can be detected. His cinematic style is essentially reflective and is almost totally bereft of comment or polemics.

His total oeuvre exudes the flavour of the Sri Lankan ethos.

Transformed the field of film

For over 55 years, Director Lester James Peiris has nurtured, influenced and transformed the field of film making and through it, the totality of Sri Lanka's social make-up. If we pause to ponder deeply on his works in sustained hindsight, a significant fact invariably emerges.

His career-long effort has been to build a cinematic conduit, to the heart of Sri Lankan culture.

The setting up of the Foundation for Lester James Peries and Sumitra Peries, is the right moment to make a national resolve to launch a solid cinema culture in this land, as a tribute to his cinema.

Our Theatres are largely abandoned. The Foundation could launch a national movement, to bring about a robust cinema culture, that will ensure the making of distinguished cinematic works, possessing the potentiality to bring back viewers to cinema halls, ensuring the emergence of a thriving cinema industry.

 

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