In this comprehensive history of Sri Lankan film, the authors suggest four levels through which a national cinema might be understood. First, it can be explored in terms of economics. Second, it can be analyzed in terms of textuality -- content, style. Third, it can be investigated in terms of its perceived uniqueness. Fourth, it can be examined in terms of that nation's other means of symbolic expression -- art, poetry, drama. All four levels are utilized in this work in a thorough and critically sophisticated manner.
The economics governing Sri Lankan cinema are certainly important. Though over 50 years have passed since the first films were made in that country, the evolution of a truly national cinema has been much delayed by a lack of funding. Foreign, particularly Indian, films have proved more popular than local product, and even now getting the money together for a production is difficult. This is true in many countries, if the production is to be a truly serious one, but in Sri Lanka the problem proves chronic.
Nonetheless, dedicated filmmakers have created pictures that in their content and their style speak for Sri Lanka. Foremost among them is Lester James Peries, whose 1956 "Rekava" marked a watershed in the evolution of Sri Lankan cinema. A documentary maker, Peries brought to his native cinema a perception and an honesty it had rarely before known.
As the authors describe it, Peries "reacted against the then regnant style of film directing by decisively throwing overboard the formula to which cinema was wedded. Instead of shooting his film inside the studios, he shot the entire film on location; sound was also recorded on location. He abandoned the highly theatrical style of acting in favor of a more controlled and realistic style."
Informed by both his documentary training and by the neorealist films of postwar Italy, Peries brought a new honesty to Sri Lankan film. With his 1965 "Gamperaliya," he "established a tradition of serious and artistic filmmaking." This year's "Mansion by the Lake," shown in Japan at the Fukuoka Film Festival and the Japan Foundation's Asian Center in Tokyo, attests to the continuation of this vital tradition.
Like the late Satyajit Ray in India, Peries made film more representative of his country and hence more authentic, not only to local film-goers but to audiences all over the world. And, like Ray, he has had to contend with the fact that serious and honest films are rarely popular. In Sri Lanka, in particular, the excesses of Bollywood have filled the screens just as they now monopolize local television.
In addition there are the special interests that sway official attitudes. A socially engaged cinema, such as is illustrated in the films of Dharmasena Pathiraja, must fight for attention, and, in some instances, even the right to be seen. His 1994 "Vasuli," dealing as it does "with the deleterious effects of tourism and the flourishing trade in child adoption," has still not been released to the Sri Lankan public.
Despite such difficulties, a responsible and artistic cinema is evolving. This book traces its history to 2000 (the very useful listing of every Sri Lankan film ever made goes up to 1999), but since that time there has been an acceleration of noteworthy films, all of them in a realist style and many of them devoted to subjects that, Sri Lankan though they are, have never before been the subject of a film.
There is Linton Semage's 1999 film, "Padaday" (The Outcast), an important picture which the authors only list (though they later include a still from it) and his new film, "Pickpocket," which was this year seen both in Fukuoka and in Tokyo. There is Inoka Sathyanagani's new "Sulang Kirilli" (The Wind Bird), which was one of the films in competition at the recent Tokyo International Film Festival. It is about a young woman who by law cannot abort her illegitimate child, but, at the same time, cannot bring up an "illegal" child.
Such subjects would have been rare indeed 10 years ago, but now the realities of Sri Lanka are being shown in their cinema. This is a sure sign of maturity. Two years ago, the authors could honestly write that "the industry is experiencing severe hardships, the social environment is hardly conducive to the growth of a wholesome cinema, and creativity is at low ebb."
Yet now, with the new peace accord holding, with an economic balance beginning, with some film-goers now looking beyond Hollywood/Bollywood and with a new generation of film directors determined to make films, things have changed. What has been emerging for the past half century, as the authors make clear, is a cinema with a Sri Lankan accent. It is a national style that aims not at being national, but rather being authentic.
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