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| Sunday, 18 September 2005 |
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The forsaken land (Sulanga
Enu Pinisa) : A land between war and peace by Ranga Chandrarathne It all starts with a hand waving above the surface of a river for help and the isolated hands wave and wave and gradually sink into the water.
Vimukthi Jayasundera's debut film Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The forsaken land) which won the prestigious award Camera d'Or at the 58th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival, captures powerful images of shattered human landscapes, sandwiched between war and peace. Each footage carries on this theme of uncertainty, which engulfs the lives of the ordinary citizens as well as the war-weary soldiers. The no war-no peace situation has trapped every one. The soldiers once fighting are now on picnic patrols and sometimes pick up, particularly in this instance, a village guard who is also tired of this unbearable uncertainty, and undresses himself in the course of their journey and finally throws him into a river. The village guard, brilliantly portrayed by Mahendra Perera, is also in the same boat. With his meagre salary he has to feed three and, ekes out a miserable living in an isolated shanty. His elder sister (Kaushalya Fernando), who towards the latter part of the film commits suicide by hanging, is a dependent who does all the dirty household chores and accompanies his little daughter (Pumudika Sapurni Pieris) to school. The wife of the village guard (Nilupulee Jayawardana) always mocks her sister-in-law who in turn blames the circumstances and the aridness of the life they lead amidst semi-desert vegetation. This village guard (Gramarakshaka) is joined by an older colleague (Hemasiri Liyanage) who seems to be a vagrant character after a series of mishaps in his life. The family lives in abject poverty so much so that they cannot afford a radio. After a monotonous day the village guard goes to bed without fulfilling his duties as a husband. In another instance, the wife carries on an illicit love affair with a soldier who is also a close friend of her husband. Love, religious sentiments and the very basic human relationships have been turned upside down by the decades of war. What remains is the coarse form of unscrupulous relations and the scene where the village guard is having sex with a pregnant woman suggests amply the degree of general frustration among the people. In their lives, there is no place for kindness, love and religion and they have shed their meanings and become abstract notions. When the morrow is uncertain people do not hesitate to use every opportunity to fulfil their lust. One can therefore justify the behaviours of the people in this particular situation as realistic and authentic. The conversation though, sounds funny, in a dug-up pit, between the village guard and his soldier friend (Saumya Liyanage) portrays the stark reality and predicament a soldier has to face in the battlefront. Indeed, there is very little difference between the soldier and the village guard and both are tired of war and perhaps, of uncertain peace. For this soldier a mere helicopter drive to Jaffna gives a heavenly happiness. He does not hesitate to have sex with his friend's wife. The elder sister who watches her brother's wife having sex with the soldier, considers the affair as an affront to her family and invariably, seems to be sex-hungry, takes her life by hanging. Perhaps one could argue that she would have committed suicide because she had had no lover and her solitary walks along the sandy stretches and the longing for sex after amorous advances of a man in the bus could justify this claim. The story of a Kati Kirilli summs up the plight of the whole population sandwiched between war and peace. According to the story poverty stricken Kati Kirilli goes from village to village in search of a partner with her only treasure, a pinch of rice in her hand. At the end she comes to a field where a group of farmers are busy. None of them turn to look at Kati Kirilli but a hunch-backed farmer. The farmer told Kati Kirilli to go to a house and to cook the rice. When the rice is cooked, Kati Kirilli without knowing the name of the farmer calls him "Kudo Kudo". On hearing this other farmers, laugh at the farmer. The long story ends with the farmer killing the Kati Kirilli and setting the house on fire and he jumps into it. The story goes on to say that Kati Kirilli is still roaming while the farmer still burns in the fire. In real life, the Kati Kirilli seems to be the wife of the old village guard and he still suffers from the loss of his wife. As a solace the village guard wants to get rid of his guilty feelings and relates it to the little girl in the form of a folk tale. Though the story set in Sri Lanka is about the no-war-no-peace situation, it is the story of any population cought up in the war; it could be the same in Afghanistan or in the former republic of Bosnia and Croatia or anywhere else in the world. The silence and the baron and the arid landscape plays a major role in conveying the human tragedy that befalls the people whose lives revolve around war and peace and the deafening emptiness and indecisiveness brought about by the ceasefire and the consequent no-war-no-peace situation. The lives of those people who inhabit the semi-arid land is as arid as the land itself. Vimukthi has used a complex evocative cinematic language with carefully edited footages and has exploited the light and shade to the maximum to convey the idea of emptiness and the complex experiences of the people. Nakedness has also been used in its starkest form where necessary to drive home the frustration and the helplessness of the people who enjoy a hasty sex life. The background music which has integrated well into the film is by Nadeeka Guruge. |
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