Film review:

Sewwandi - a story of passion and vengeance
 

by Indeewara Thilakarathne

Sewwandi, the first production venture by popular actress Sangeetha Weeraratne is now being screened in the EAP circuit including the Savoy theatre.

Kuamri (Sangeetha) is a receptionist at a leading car-sale in Colombo where she meets with her sweetheart Pradeep (Kamal Addaraarachchi), an unscrupulous youth with an ambition to amass wealth by hook or by crook. Pradeep is also the sole bread winner of his family and supports his bed-ridden father who opposes his illicit business and theft of vehicles with the help of a gang. Following a detection of a vehicle theft from the car-sale which Pradeep had supplied, Kumari is sacked.

From that point on, the story comes to a climax following a series of incidents leading to the double murder of Pradeep and Shirani (Dilhani Ashokamala) by Kumari and the discovery of Kumari towards the end of the film by the highly skillful detective, Priyantha (Ravindra Randeniya) whilst on a holiday in Kandy.

Sewwandi directed and script-written by veteran film maker Vasantha Obeysekara, though touches upon many themes, has failed to evolve any character to maturity. Some of the scenes are extremely unrealistic though it is natural in a work of art. The script-writer, it seems, has not taken into consideration the fact that the benevolent behaviour depicted by Priyantha, a detective with an ambition of climbing up the professional ladder, to jettison overboard an excellent clue purely on the insistence of his wife Lalitha (brilliantly portrayed by Chandani Seneviratne) is highly unlikely to come from a Sri Lankan police officer though there many be good Samaritans among them.

Kamal Adaraachchi, Dilhani Ashokamala, Ravindra Randeniya and Sangeetha Weeraratne have done justice to their allotted roles, while Dayan Witharana shows in a natural way that he is quite capable of portraying characters in the silver screen and has shown signs of becoming a talented actor.

The music for the film was directed by Rohana Weerasinghe while photography was by Jayantha Gunawardena. Art Director Lal Harindranath and editor Ravindra Guruge have done a tremendous work in improving the cinematic appeal of the film. While appreciating the effort by Samgeetha Weeraratne who comes forward to salvage the Sinhala film industry, it is noteworthy that Sangeetha should endeavour more and more to produce films that are value-based and depicting the Sri Lankan culture and heritage.

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