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| Sunday, 29 February 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Asoka Handagama breaks new ground with Me Paren Enna : Join us on the A9 highway by Padma Edirisinghe The call to join them on the newly re-opened A9 highway is by Young Asia Television, a call made via the highly popular media device of teledrama that keeps Lankans captivated come night, despite turbulent politics and bizarre happenings and ominous prophesies that doomsday is near.
Literary cum cinematic presentations of the horrendous spectre of war that continues to plague human civilization usually deal with missiles and mortars with war planes that soar high like birds of death with processions of grey uniform clad soldiers marching in thousands in hard boots. an aspect that is marginalized in this grisly scenario is the most significant i.e. the impact that war has on the lives of the average man and woman and child. Of course it has to be admitted that many a Lankan producer has been cognizant of this aspect and has produced a few remarkable pieces but Take this road bursts on us with a difference. It all happens on and around the highway, the A9 road running from Colombo to North, to be more specific. And what makes it more boldly novel is that three families of the three major communities i.e. Sinhala and Tamil and Muslim, are involved in the tragic events staged on this highway, events that are highly thought-provoking too. The Sinhala family is on a visit to Nagadipa very optimistically travelling to materialize a long felt wish to worship in this revered sanctum on a sequestered island. The Tamil family subject to trauma is domiciled in Jaffna while the Muslim family has plans to go back along the road to re-settle where they once were. What actually happens to them is of less importance and need not be recounted in detail in the larger backdrop of the issues involved. The greater and envisaged purpose is to open the eye of those concerned on the complexities of the ethnic conflict and to the need of promoting the values of mutual understanding, and mutual co-operation among communities and the need for reconciliation among them. Award winning artiste Asoka Handagama, who has already made a name for his bold approaches and experimental styles, was picked by YA TV to direct this film. The film's location is actually the roads and landscapes of Jaffna and the rather unusual fact is that the director and his staff have not encountered any problems with regard to shooting with either the Army or the LTTE. What is even more remarkable is that the Tamil actors and actresses of the cast had been inhabitants of Jaffna drawn from the local professional actors and actresses. "I wouldn't go that far to say that I am pro-LTTE" says Handagama. But I am known for my sympathies with the Tamil cause and have always championed "unconditional ceasefire." This may in a good measure account for the complete absence of any sabotage by the LTTE's during the shooting of the teledrama. We were using local professionals, Tamil ethnically in our caste and objection could have been raised but there was none. they even appeared to patronise us by watching some of our scenes especially when mega sets had been constructed. Maybe it was the technical fascination." When I commented on the friendship that may have grown between the Sinhala actors and actresses and the Tamil actors and actresses while on location, he had these observations to make: "Yes. That too was a very significant outcome. In fact the ordinary couriers of peace are more effective than the official, superior activators of peace." The humble vendor carrying his goods for sale in the Tamil villages with a scarcity of essential goods, the homely Tamil woman offering water to a tired Sinhala traveller in the typical drinking vessel of the Jaffna peninsula in Dravidian damsel flashing a smile of welcome from her palmyra thatched hut by the seas on a Buddhist group of Nagadeepa pilgrims sailing by on a boat they perform the job of reconciliation more effectively, suggested Handagama. The 13 episode "Take this road" (Me Paren Enna) is unique in another way. It has been produced subsequent to an unusual exercise that precedes a production of a typical Sri Lankan teledrama. The blurb on the drama puts it thus "Take this road was developed through a unique process of discussion and debate ensuring the representation of all the stake-holders of Sri Lanka's peace process." It goes on to state that this provided an opportunity for "them" to express their own views and concerns about media treatment of conflict. among the participants at the discussion had been representatives from the community based, organizations in the North those working with displaced families, women's groups based on border villages artists and writers and media practitioners. A greater dimension had been added to the debate and discussion by the participation of three film directors, from India and South Africa who have already distinguished themselves by using the drama format to convey the magnitude of conflicts ending with that ugly syndrome called WAR and resultant social issues in their own countries, impinging mainly on innocent men and women who have had the least or zero responsibility for bringing about the disrupted and volatile situations. It need not be reiterated that those actually responsible for the inflammatory situations created are finally the least affected as they cocoon themselves in their security sheaths and materially are quite well - off to resist any plunge unlike the poor who sit so precariously that a little tilt jut drops them into the cavern. Some of the earlier privileged group even capitalize on the situation by profits from sale of firearms and other fraudulent activities that are spawned out of the war. This social injustice accompanying the debacle of war is even more evil and unbearable than war itself. ###### Diya yata gindara - a Sinhala thriller by Kaminie Jayanthi Liyanage Director Udayakantha Warnasuriya's Diya Yata Gindara (carrying fire under water) tells us the sad story of a family, whose desperate and reckless bid for "quick money" to cure their congenitally-diseased child, ends up in retribution.
Sequenced at an unbroken "no nonsense" brisk pace, the film grabs the viewer's attention in its investigative approach, and is a welcome departure from the usually seen norm of slow drawn narrative. It is also one of the very few local "police" films, making the viewer tread the path of police investigative operations. The film is the maiden venture of Cinema Entertainments (Pvt) Ltd. made up of the film producing, importing and distributing triad Ceylon Theatres Ltd., Ceylon Entertainments and Cinemas. Sanath Goonetilleke, Achala Alles and Amarasiri Kalansooriya are respectively cast in the roles of disappearing husband Sampath, Madara and Sampath's friend Jayakody. Tony Ranasinghe, Srimal Wedisinghe, Srinath Maddumage, Janesh Silva, Nirosha Herath, Tyronne Micheal and Thakshila Vaas are some of the large cast making up the narrative. Sangeeth Wickremasinghe directs the musical score while K.D. Dayananda handles the camera. The story, dialogue and script is by the director Warnasuriya. The film closes with an exonerating look at the culprits exposing them in the relentless tide of social victimisation and ends on the note of the human need of love for growth. Where should one draw the distinction between recognising the boundaries of socially-accepted human ethics and validating a set of self-serving ethics in the face of compelling calamities, is the question the viewer is left with. |
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| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
A woman named Madara turns up at a police station to complain that her
husband who visited the North Central Province to purchase antique goods
had disappeared. A villager treading through a jungle path comes across a
burnt motor car with skeleton inside. In police investigations, Madara
identifies both as belonging to her husband. But suspicion turns on the
family when the skeleton is found to be of a woman, and not of a man....
