Bambara Walalla:

Memorable cinematic experience

by A. S. Balasooriya

Film is a wonderful medium of visual arts invented by man in the recent past. It is generally used to tell man's story on earth, the way he lives, the world he has built and the problems he has created for himself.

Unfortunately, the golden age of film industry is falling down today. The cause is popularly attributed to the introduction of TV. However, the stark truth is the bankruptcy of creativity in the present generation of filmmakers. To save this wonderful tool of art, from extinction, we need highly creative filmmakers. I see a promising flimmaker of rare talent in Atula Liyanage. His maiden film Bambara Walalla is cinematically highly impressive. Winning the special Jury award for the best direction and photography in the 43rd American Houston Cinema Festival this year bears witness for his talents.

The film is written and directed by Atula Liyanage. He also plays the main character of Podi Eka - the village lad. The secret of his success could be his long experience in writing, acting and directing the stage dramas.

He received the best scriptwriter award for his most acclaimed drama 'Makara Warna' in 2000 at the State Drama Festival. In the same year he won several awards for the same drama, including the best producer, best actor best stage light arrangement, best stage setting and the best make-up artist. His next drama 'Yuda Veddo' was also remarkable. It won him awards for the best writer, best producer and the best supporting actor. When an experienced stage actor and a drama director takes up to cinema it always makes a difference.

A scene from the film

He has been able to transfer his discipline of drama to the medium of cinema, knowing well the distinction between the two forms of Arts. For instance, drama is based on dialogue, while cinema is based on the pictorial narration. He has been able to master the techniques of filmmaking in his very first production. Every scene in Bambara Walalla is visually communicative and speech is used economically. Even a foreigner is sure to understand the encounters in the scenes without knowing Sinhala. The English subtitles are not really necessary. The film retains the attention of the audience mostly by the facial expressions of the characters and the events. Even music used sparingly.

The story

This is a story which depicts life in a degenerating village in Sri Lanka. In fact, the Sinhalese villagers are socially, economically and culturally degenerating. This conditions the national concern and attention. Bambara Walalla is telling a story of a village boy Podi Eka who didn't have any schooling due to the extreme poverty of the family run by the mother. The blooming child's first experience of the world is the loss of his beloved cow by theft. It deeply disturbs his boyhood memory. He loves his mother, and elder sister. They are his world. But it is shaken by a man who joins the family as a step father. He earns his livelihood by producing illicit liquor. Podi Eka works for him, learning an illegal trade. One day the step father seduces Podi Eka's sister. The poor girl commits suicide out of shame. Enraged by the incident Podi Eka strikes the rapist with a heavy stick causing his death. Police arrest the boy and the court sentences him to 15 years imprisonment.

The proper episode starts with his coming back home as a young man. Due to the miserable conditions in the village he is confronted everywhere by brutality and injustice. Mother mentally breaks down. The episode goes on telling how Podi Eka faces life.

Poidi Eka is neither equipped by nature nor by education to encounter the crude realities of society. A coffin mudalali recruits him as an assistant. He uses him to destroy his competitors in the business. This episode made me rethink of our present education. A series of serious questions came to me after viewing the film. I was wondering as to "What is the purpose of education if it does not equip and empower the younger generation to meet evils of society?"

Sociological perspectives

Atula Liyanage seems to have drawn his inspirations for this great piece of art from some sociological perspectives of human behaviour. The truth he tries to put through is that each one of us is a product of society. We are really nonentities. You are not a free individual. For instance, while society pushes innocents to be criminals, it punishes criminals. The question as J. Krishnamurti the philosopher - constantly raised 'Can't we free ourselves from the social conditioning and be free human beings?

The characters which are seemingly innocent at the outset gradually develop to be ruthless devils as the story is revealed step by step. For instance, Mal who enters into the episode saying "I bury only the dead" is seemingly kind and concerned of people's troubles.

He often helps those who come to him. But in the course of challenging situations in life this man gradually turns into a ruthless an exploiter and a dangerous killer. So is Podi eka, the innocent village lad. The film depicts the stark reality of the man made world of competition and struggle for existence. World is nothing but a jungle where the strong is suppressing the weak for his own survival. When it comes to earn a few rupees, people easily tend to fall into the level of beasts. The values, culture, and social morality are hypocritical and are used only as a disguise.

Most of the characters in the film are people who have lost their conscience. They cannot think for themselves and therefore they are driven by circumstances. No wonder you can easily make them into suicide bombers. Such a society as this is a fertile ground for flourishing terrorism. Atula is purposefully depicting a society, where people have lost their conscience in their struggle for existence and greed for money. May be it is the direction we are stepping forward at present. We see in the film how a soft breeze gradually turns to be a whirlwind.

What is beauty?

Is beauty something that gives you a soothing and pleasant experience? In Lester James' films we enter into a smoothly flowing stream of consciousness, where our soul is awakened by sublime truths of life. Then there are films that send you to a colourful and unrealistic world of fancy, with music and dancing.

Atula Liyanage's Bambara Walalla is radically different from our past cinematic experiences. It is hard-hitting to our cherished imagined world of fanciful world of peace, happiness and justice. It strikes you with the hard reality of society and human existence.

This is a classic work for the students of filmology, worth studying scene by scene. Students of mass media can learn many aspects of film production from camera angles to light arrangement, colour tone, symbolic representations, and many cinematic techniques used. Seeing a film and appreciating it are two different things.

Today many films are there only to see i.e. only to be seen and forgotten. The common man simply wants to enter a make-believe world of fancy to forget this daily burden. He wants to get lost momentarily.