|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 14 September 2003 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
The Abandoned Land : Trapped between war and peace by Jayanthi Liyanage
Vimukthi Jayasudera, at 26, the youngest Sri Lankan film maker to have made it to the premier international film festival at Cannes, with his short film Vide pour l'amour (Empty for Love), is in Sri Lanka to launch on the production of his maiden full-length feature film. Calling it the Abandoned Land, Vimukthi describes it as "the story of a village in Sri Lanka where evil nature and insanity invades and occupies human souls and bodies." A believer in the mood of the images he collates, rather than pre-occupation with their mere motion, he tries to capture "the strange mood which occupies the no-war-no-peace quagmire where public life has been the casualty for too long, and an air of evilness and sickness not only sneaks into people's minds and souls but also haunts their physical selves." Vimukthi talks to the Sunday Observer of this new creation, his insights on the transitions taking place in Sri Lankan society and the resultant cinema. He is a product of the Film and Television Institute of India and a graduate of Le Fresnoy, a post-graduate art school and audio-visual research and production centre in France, supported by the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. Q: How does the story line of the Abandoned Land run? A: It is about a small girl of about 12, who, as a reaction to her society, does not want to speak. We do not know why. The drama begins with the investigation. The film has nothing to do with the war but with the background, a village in Anuradhapura, and images of army soldiers, I want to create the special mood which is between war and peace. Tension is the mood I want to express for which I also use a few characters.
One is a young man engaged in the process of de-mining. We do not see him actually de-mining but only the equipment he uses. The second is a young woman who has an affair with an army soldier. The third is an old homeguard who has a kind of romantic, revolutionary feeling, being a product of the 1971 uprising. He wants to do something but does not know what to do. The last is a pregnant woman who does not know the father of her unborn child and has a special relationship with crows. A kind of a mad character who does not talk to people but does violent things. Q: Have you been to this village? A: Yes, I have. I did my last film, Empty for Love, at Mihintale and Anuradhapura which was quite an experience. I want to use the same rhythm in my first feature film. Q: What are you trying to say with this film? A: As an artiste, I might question why human beings exist in this world. We must tell the world what war is about. When one speaks about war in Europe, it is always a past memory of the first and the second world war. They do not have any new experiences of war and do not want to think about it any more. But, we have the experiences of new arms, new weapons, a new generation in globalisation and a war which is different from what other human beings have experienced. Q: Why did you call your first documentary the Land of Silence? A: I am not against war really, because I am also not against peace. There is something special in that silent mood which is a feeling about nothingness. For example, if somebody wants to talk about war, there is obviously the need to show the war. But I do not agree with that. I do not have to show the war, to talk about war. I can show the silence, to talk about war and that is what I want to do. Q: Is this the kind of approach you are adopting in your new film too? A: All my films talk about the war. My first, the Land of Silence was about silence. The second, Empty for Love, was about emptiness. There again I refer to something or someone abandoned. It is a kind of feeling. It's not a special story about war or peace or characters but about a special mood. These two films do not have any dialogue or a strong story. The mood was emptiness. All human beings feel emptiness in their lives. A lot of films, specially those from Hongkong, do not have story telling today. The emphasis is mainly on the mood. Q: What impression do you gather of the local films? Where do you think our films are right now? A: To do that, I will give you three examples from the Sri Lankan society, from three places I have been to. One is at a temple at a ceremony for a Devalaya. A lot of people were watching the dancing and the spiritual happenings there. I had the feeling that even if what is happening was not art, people had a spiritual belief in it. The second place is a commercial restaurant opened for the young generation and this is the worst place. There is nothing happening there either in art or culture. People just go there for a drink or eats and if they like only, go for a cultural event. They just enjoy life in an empty space. I do not understand this. It is fashionable to go there but there is no culture. The third place is Lionel Wendt where I went for a ballet. The crowd there comes from the bourgeoise class but they have a feeling for art and they follow art. But at the commercial restaurant there is no art or drama but just rich society having a lot of free time and money.If you are going to make a film, you might make it for the second category because you cannot make a film for the people from the two extremes. The bourgeoise in fact, do not have much money or power today. The second category enjoy a lot of power, politically and economically, but unfortunately, do not have any culture. Today, we are in very tight situation in Sri Lanka because this category must come to the cinema, theatre or other arts, but they do not come. Q: How do you think we can get them to come? A: It is a revolutionary thing which I do not mean politically. We must work very hard but unfortunately, artistes too want to patronise that place as that is where one finds economic power. The period in Sri Lanka now resembles the history of Europe - a kind of trans-class period. You cannot find an exact social class as the local class structure has become very complicated. A transformation is taking place at different social class levels with different levels of education and cultural perceptions. But all these classes go to the commercial restaurant. This is something we must think of very seriously as we cannot take art as solely romantic. We, as artistes, have to be an earnest and knowledgable group of people. Q: What social group does your new film target? A: It is not targeted at any group. It is very simple. With it, I want to speak to the people who come to the commercial restaurant. But I do not know whether they will come to see the film. Film making goes beyond any class level because we are talking to human beings. As my producer comes from France and the reality is very commercial and not approachable in Sri Lankan Society, we might make a film for France or Europe and distribute it there. But I have to use the resources here to make it my own for Sri Lankan people. Q: Having come from France and being exposed to the current trends in world cinema, what do you think of the contemporary Sri Lankan and world cinema? A: Compared to sixties and seventies, the current cinema is not so strong. It is facing many problems like lack of money and expressions of humanity in a world of globalisation and capitalism and could be heading in a very bad direction. This has complicated the cinema which relates to capitalism and finances. So people make films to run the industry and not for art or for social revolutions. When you take the big industry of Hollywood and Bollywood, it's a 'big nothing' where nothing happens. There is misrecognition of cinema here. Anyone can make images. But is cinema basically of making images? Ultimately, what you need is the feeling of image and the mood of that image. But with today's technology and different kinds of cameras, you can make a hundred and one images, but not spend time trying create these two things. Cinema is most importantly the image and the mood, not just action. The Cannes' audience was very appreciative and terrible at the same time. If the film did not work, they reacted violently for the film to be halted. They were not mediocre which is very good. Q: Do you think Sri Lankan cinema has broken barriers and moved to new perspectives? A: I think Asoka Handagama, Prasanna Withanage and several others have done quite interesting work. But Sri Lankan cinema does not have a dependent art form. One needs literature, painting, arts and a huge rich background to create films. Here, we have no special space belonging to arts or cinema or even a cinema library. There is no pivotal place in which the local cinematic artistes could meet. In the last few weeks, I have had difficulty in contacting them as they do not talk to each other or discuss their work together, as in Europe. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
