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| Sunday, 19 February 2006 |
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Film Review : Hiripoda Wassa - It's not all bad by Aditha Dissanayake Remember Mercutio in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet - the cynic who wants
to "Prick love for pricking" to beat it down? Oh, Mercutio! If you had lived
today to be my date when I went to see Hiripoda Wassa... I
But you were not there, with me, and I was "Alone, alone, all alone" (like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner), at the Savoy Cinema, last Monday. Having missed Udayakantha Warnasuriya's Randiya Dahara which had Jackson Anthony and Geetha Kumarasinghe bagging the Sarasaviya Awards for Best Actor and Actress last year, and having not cared much for his other movies like Bahuboothayo and Rosa Wasanthaya, I was trying to amend things and get back on track by watching Hiripoda Wassa, which apparently had broken the records set by One Shot and Samanala Thatu, but has yet to reach the heights of Suriya Arana. The story revolves round three teenagers - Prageeth, a younger, darker version of Hugh Grant, the son of a business tycoon (Vijaya Corea), whose fiance is Veena (Arankali Arkarsha); Sithum, the son of a Postman (Jayalath Manoratne) is in love with Pooja, (Chathurika Peiris) while Ramith who says he comes from the middle class, and is seduced by his biology teacher who as luck would have it lives in an apartment directly opposite his block of flats, nevertheless, voices every teenagers views of life when he says all he wants to do is to take things easy. "(Shape eke jeevath venava).
There are three sub-plots centred round the three teenagers. Sithum, the Postman's son yearns for a bicycle to which his father responds with the typical "When I was young I had to walk ten-miles to school..etc" Haven't we all heard this before? But what Pooja's father tells her when he finds out she is in love with the son of a Postman is worth recording. "Love is not the only important thing in a marriage. Your backgrounds too count...perhaps not at first but later on...Your mother and I have lived longer than you, so, we know a bit more about these things than you do" he advises her, gently. Sithum's love for Pooja is tested when Pooja's big brother challenges Sithum to climb the lamppost on the centre of the roundabout in front of Liberty Plaza, stark naked. Sithum takes up the challenge, unbuttons his shirt, takes off his belt, removes his trousers... and does climb the lamppost. The only realistic scene in the whole episode is when an over weight policeman pounces on Sithum and beats him to near death, for his irregular behaviour. Meanwhile Ramith runs around in a car stolen from his father's garage, in the dead of the night, with his biology teacher who would have done better on the ramp than in a classroom, trying to dump the body of the man she had un-intensionally murdered. When they run out of petrol there appears on the scene the Dadayakkaraya in Henry Jayasena's Kuweni, to rescue them. Even though he looks the same as he did when he acted as the hunter in the drama, here, in the movie he is an English Master, eager to correct Sithum's wrong grammar when Sithum asks him to take him to the petrol shed. After handing Sithum a leaflet about his tutuion classes he is all too happy to give Sithum the can of petrol in his car and drive off. Who says Colombo is not brimming with Samaritans? Prageeth's problems too are as bizarre as the problems of the other two, emphasising more than ever that these teenagers must exist on another planet. Yet, to give the Director due credit, the differences between reality and the bizarre is well camouflaged by the choice of the right theme - youth - the time of life when you wrap yourself in rainbow colours and believe the Old Order needeth change. Prageeth suspects his father of murdering his mother, assisted by "Aunty Sherin" who turns out to be a seductress when she makes him take her to a movie at the Savoy. But the best scenes are centred round him; in the "message" he receives in the form of an SMS from Veena, and in the scenes of the country-side where he escapes to, when life gets too rough in Colombo. There is, however, only one morale to pick from Prageeth's ordeal - never wear a denim jacket to your girl-friend's birthday party, especially with a red "skinny" - she will bash your head off. Apart from the music, a few breathtaking views of the country-side and Arankali's beautiful figure, there is nothing in the movie to make a lasting impression. This is surprising considering the fact that two hours and thirty minutes of a slight drizzle (hiri poda) surely equals five minutes of a heavy downpour, and ought to leave you, if not drenched, at least slightly wet. But it is'nt that bad, if only because here is a movie that gets away dealing frankly with teenage relationships without provoking the ire of conservatives. You will enjoy it if you are into anthropology, interested in observing the behaviour of your species in a darkened, chilly atmosphere of a cinema hall, undergoing the ultimate "magic of the movie experience" (keeping, in mind, however, not to rest your feet on the other patron's seats). You will enjoy it if you are eighteen or less, and if you didn't have to write a review after watching it. "Hiripoda Wassa" however, is not a movie that would make you think or cry, and no one would dream of using the highest compliment on the tongues of the teenage characters in the movie to describe it. "Ela?" Not quite. |
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can imagine you
muttering your witty phrases in my ear, especially during the scenes where Pooja (Chaturika Peiris) runs around the streets of Colombo, performing
aerobic exercises which are really meant to be dance movements. 
