Lester James Peries and the social imaginary

by Prof. Wimal DISSANAYAKE

As we celebrate the 90th birthday of Lester James Peries - the architect of art cinema in Sri Lanka - it would be useful to revisit his nineteen feature films and re - contextualize them in terms of changing social circumstances and newer regimes of discourse. As with other great Asian filmmakers such as Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa (Japan), Satyajit Ray (India), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Taiwan), Im Kwon-taek ( South Korea) Zhang Yimou (China), the attempt to locate his work within newer conceptual formulations and discursive formations is likely to pay rich dividends. With 'Rekava' (Line of Destiny), Peries inaugurated the art cinema in Sri Lanka; it constituted a formidable challenge to the existing and bemused film culture, such as it was. However, it is with 'Gamperaliya' (Changing Village) that he found a perfect concordance between the chosen experience and the desired supple form leading to a cogent lyrical poise. While 'Rekava' represented, in terms of cinematic art, a bold attempt to transcend the formula-guided cinema that was prevalent at the time, the experience itself did not carry complete conviction for me as someone who was born and bred in a remote village ( similar to the one depicted in the film); things did not quite add up.

However, with the production of 'Gamperaliya', 'Kaliyugaya' (The Age of Kali) and 'Yuganthaya', (End of an Era) Lester James Peries was able to fashion a cinema that was experientially authentic, that carried the requisite social density and cultural modulation of meaning and that carved out a concomitant cinematic poetics and representational strategies for achieving his artistic ambitions. While 'Nidhanaya', (The Treasure) in my judgment, is Peries' most accomplished work in terms of willed cinematic art, and 'Wekanda Walauwa' (Mansion by the Lake) is replete with Chekhovian visual symbolism, in this short essay I wish to focus on 'Gamperaliya', 'Yuganthaya' and 'Kaliyugaya' as representing Peries' measured attempt to explore the indigenous social imaginary in terms of cinematography; his cinematic fingerprints are unmistakably present in these works. In response to these films, Peries found, what most conscientious filmmakers are incessantly looking for" the supreme spectator with discernment.

The term social imaginary has been put into wide academic circulation by the eminent philosopher Charles Taylor. This is indeed a concept that I have deployed productively in some of my books on cinema. As Taylor remarked, the concept of the social imaginary encompasses something much wider and deeper than analytical schemes and intellectual categories that scholars are in the habit of pressing into service in there investigations. He calls attention to the ways in which they (people) imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations which are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images which underlie these expectations. Here, it is evident, that Taylor is focusing very insistently on the existential and experiential dimensions of social living.

Lester James Peries' 'Gamperaliya', 'Yuganthaya' and 'Kaliyugaya' capture admirably the social imaginary of Sri Lanka. This was, to be sure, facilitated by the fact that he based his three films on the compellingly authentic trilogy of novels by Martin Wickremasinghe. I have dealt at length with how these novels participate in the social imaginary and the Sri Lankan public sphere in my book "Sinhala Novel and the Public Sphere."

'Gamperaliya' reconfigures the collapse of the feudal social order and the rise of the middle class. In 'Kaliyugaya', the fictional discourse of cultural modernity that was given initial shape in 'Gamperaliya' is carried forward vividly. 'Yuganthaya' can be read as an allegorical conflict between capitalist and socialist forces contending to occupy the consciousness of the people. Peries, in these films, found the right visual registers as well as the persuasive tone to communicate these meanings. What is interesting about Lester James Peries' attempt to capture the social imaginary of Sri Lanka is that it is buttressed by his deep conviction of the efficacy of cinematic realism and the importance of humanism as a functional creed. Realism, for him, is not merely a form of mimetic reflectionism but a poetic re-creation, cinematic re-coding, of social reality where the locus of meaning shifts to history and its inflections of human lives. Similarly, humanism, in his judgment, is not merely a mind-set but also a mode of feeling and a part of his representational arsenal.

In conclusion, Lester (hope you are reading this piece) while wishing you health and happiness in the years to come, let me re-iterate the fact that your singular contribution to the enrichment of Sri Lankan cinema is deeply and indelibly etched in the national memory.