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| Sunday, 27 March 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Third anniversary tribute: Gamini Wijetunge A free spirit extinguished too soon by Aravinda Gamini Wijetunge was at the height of his powers when his sudden death occurred three years ago. He was not only an innovative journalist and magazine editor but also an unusual film critic and cultural commentator.
Gamini Wijetunge belonged to the third generation of film critics to appear on the horizons of the Sinhala cinema during the last century. By contrast to the previous generations his was a generation more conscious than its predecessors of the whole social and political infrastructure, which had produced these films. Unlike the previous generations they may not have been entirely bi-lingual but this they made up by other resources such as a mastery of the mechanics of filmmaking and appetite for watching the better kind of western film. The advent of Gamini's generation also coincided with the arrival of a new wave of Sinhala filmmakers after the 1970's who took the cinema by storm. Gamini was fortunate that from his youthful days he was able to associate freely with some of the pillars of the new wave. The IPB press at Maradana run by the two Hewakapuge brothers provided a congenial setting for him. It was the IPB, which blazed a new trail in Sinhala poster art by producing some bold and original posters for some of the more outstanding Sinhala plays of the time. This innovative approach stood Gamini in good stead when he himself later took to magazine journalism. Gamini made his mark on the cultural scene as the Editor of the magazine 'Desathiya' brought out by the Information Department. The first Editor was the versatile Cyril B. Perera but his was a talent, which could not be accommodated, in a bureaucratic strait jacket. It was the idea of Sarath Amunugama then the Secretary to the Ministry of State to use the Information Department's resources to bring out a news magazine in Sinhala catering to a new Sinhala-reading generation. It is a tribute to Gamini's spirit of independence that although emanating from a Government department, indeed the principal arm of Government propaganda, he was able to make the magazine attractive to a new critical generation of readers just as it is to the credit of Amunugama and his then political boss, Minister Anandatissa de Alwis that they were able to provide the setting for this. 'Desathiya' was an exciting experiment in magazine journalism. It went in for bold layouts, long and explorative features and a colloquial style of writing. Its cultural coverage was formidable. Where the mainstream newspapers were content with the ritual nod towards culture 'Desathiya' went in for extensive coverage and commentary on not merely the popular media such as films and drama but also neglected areas such as painting, music, dancing and the other fine arts. There was also extensive coverage of foreign affairs all done in an exciting house style, which carried Gamini's imprint from end to end. As a film critics Gamini Wijetunge straddled two attitudes towards the cinema and was indeed enriched by the two generations, which had preceded him. While some critics concentrated on a film's content others were more enamoured of its technique. Gamini's writings were a synthesis of the two. He refused to be boxed in by any ideology but he was by no means blind to the social and political realities of his day. He also saw the film in the context of its technique and mechanics. The result was that his film reviews were set in a strong sociological context illuminating both the content and the style of the filmmaker and making of the work an artistic whole. Bringing this same approach to bear as a magazine editor he was fully receptive to all the new trends unleashed by consumerism, globalisation, post-modernism and similar fads. In his writings he was always conscious of these larger forces at work on Sri Lanka's insular and inward-looking intellectual world and sought constantly to enlarge its horizons. During the last years of his life Gamini was called upon to take on administrative responsibilities at the Rupavahini Corporation and was in some measure dragged into the whirlpool of political intrigue. That was an environment wholly hostile to his free spirit and a sad footnote to his tragically foreshortened life. His death has certainly robbed us of a cultural intellectual of a rare mould.
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He was also the father of a young daughter. All these combined to invest
his untimely death with a pall of pathos for his wide circle of friends in
the Colombo avant-garde suddenly left prostrate by the loss of one of its
main standard bearers. 
