IT’S MORNING IN SRI LANKA
Midnight’s Children, the filmic rendition of Salman
Rushdie’s book by the same name was shown in Colombo recently,
fittingly with an opening segment specially filmed for Colombo
audiences, being the producer’s and director’s glowing tributes
to Sri Lanka’s attributes as the location for the movie. India
disallowed the production for political reasons, and the film’s
creative team wasted no time in prospecting Sri Lanka as an
alternate location. President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave the go
ahead personally after he was appraised of the moviemaker’s
intentions, and the rest is history.
That the team could make such a fascinatingly authentic
depiction of Indian locations such as the capital Delhi or the
Dal Lake in Kashmir is nothing short of amazing. Nobody really
could have guessed, to put it in simple terms, had the credits
not divulged the film location.
The production in the end speaks volumes for Sri Lanka as a
free country that encourages free artistic expression, and that
goes smack against the picture that the vested interests against
Sri Lanka want to propagate. But more interestingly and more
importantly, the Midnight’s Children project signals the coming
of age of Sri Lanka as an advanced location in South Asia, for
those prospecting for success, irrespective of the venture.
Sri Lanka has the best of all worlds. There is a highly
literate, dynamic population, and then there is the spirit of
accommodation and give and take. In reality, as the Midnight’s
Children project showed, Sri Lanka is more open to artistic free
expression than India, or any other country in the region --
given that most of the region’s nation states are still mired in
undemocratic traditions that have led to farcical results in the
praxis secularism.
Sri Lanka has been far more secular in that respect, than
countries that call themselves secular and whose leaders wear
that badge on the sleeve. Midnight’s Children is a testimony to
that, plain and simple. But the next advantage is that at the
moment, Sri Lanka has shown the can-do pragmatism that is
required for foreign prospectors to see projects to a
completion.
This has in part to do with the face-lifting of Sri Lanka
courtesy the Urban Development Authority and generous government
backing of its projects. Colombo is probably a film location
prospectors’ paradise given that buildings dating to different
eras are being subject to renovation under the direction of the
UDA and other state authorities concerned. There are colonial
era buildings that have been restored to fascinating detail.
There are also the attendant landscapes re-created for good
measure -- for instance when the Dutch hospital complex was
renovated, the surrounding landscape was made habitable and
synchronized.
The landscapes and the legendary scenic attributes of course
have always made Sri Lanka a producers’ paradise - films such as
Bridge on the River Kwai, India Jones and the Temple of Doom,
were produced here for good reason – leaving aside a myriad
other nondescript productions that have featured the transient
talent of Hollywood’s celluloid, from Bo Derek to others too
numerous and unknown to mention.
Local productions are cottoning on to the idea of Sri Lanka
as a location that could with relatively meagre budget outlays
make for movies of extraordinary depth and character such as the
production Siddhartha Gauthama now turning out to be a sustained
audience hit. The tourist draw of Sri Lanka as a movie location
cannot be underestimated -- Midnight’s Children no doubt will
encourage an entire new crop of movie buffs to experience at
first hand the sights and sounds of this extraordinary country
that could recreate tumultuous events almost a world away,
thematically speaking. This is a great boon -- and they say, to
be young healthy and alive in post-war Sri Lanka is heaven
itself – and in truth, you can erase the word young from that
familiar adapted quote…
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