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Reviews
Thanha Rathi Ranga (2014)
Entertaining, but not deep
Thanha Rathi Ranga (Between Yesterday and Tomorrow) is a visually pleasing, entertaining movie. It cautiously introduces and presents an interpretation of our post-war society, but doesn't bravely explore it. As a result, I would say that it is an entertaining movie that lacks depth.
Director Nilendra Deshapriya starts the movie well, with an engrossing, captivating, 30-minute sequence that takes us to the moment in 2009 when we heard of Prabhakaran's death and the ensuing street celebrations. The sequence establishes the mindset of the people that the rest of the movie deals directly with – namely, the urban poor – and specifically introduces the three protagonists, planting in our minds interesting seeds of unanswered questions. These questions would, eventually, yield an interesting coverage of our general social (or sociological) ills. These include the intolerance of the ethnic 'other' (Chandare vs. Suraj) and the inequality of everyday life (Wimal vs. his uncle).
The director then takes us to the theater of war – a search for the war's legacy. In between tender moments of innocence and romance, the protagonists discover it: the residue of violence that has become the sediment of our minds and lives. His use of the snake as the visual metaphor of our impending peril – something the audience sees but the protagonists cannot – is beautiful. Eventually, the tiny snake grows into a terrible cobra that comes home to roost. In effect, this is a brilliantly structured script (by Sarath Kothalawala and Kumara Thirimadura).
The weak part of the film follows this moment of truth, once the terrible legacy we have inherited has had its full effect. Instead of a deep, searching exploration of our plight and fate, the movie slips into a colorless anti-climax, bereft of dialogue, ideas or interpretations. The one moment of poignancy was Suraj's mother's equanimity, as she watches her son being taken away to his fate (played by Swarna Mallawarachchi) – a Tamil mother (with a symbolic name), who has already lived and learned through her terrorized society, watches with profound yet concealed grief, while the Sinhala mothers, to whom this truism is yet to dawn, wail openly.
It is in this part that the movie fails to 'go deep.' This is partly because of the lackluster script, which fails to fill its brilliant structure with the substance that could have carried the message effectively. But there is another part to this failure. Deshapriya's skill with the visual has got in the way of serious engagement with the issues that underlie the characters and the plot. Next time, I hope he seriously curtails showing off his skills. Just as an author with too vast a vocabulary can obfuscate the issues and alienate the reader, a movie director with a great visual eye can paint too many aesthetics into a frame and misguide the audience of the message. Sometimes, very often in fact, the most visually pleasing camera angle or lighting are not the most articulate.
But Deshapriya has got many things right: a well-structured script, an ensemble of wonderful actors who play their roles with sensitivity, a visually pleasing style and, perhaps most difficult of all, the right pace and mood that he sustains throughout. If this director develops well, great things may be on the way. I would say without any hesitation: 'watch this space!'
Hansa Vilak (1980)
A skillful director's maiden effort
It is hard to imagine that Dharmasiri Bandaranayake's maiden film effort, Hansa Vilak, is really a maiden film effort. It has a carefully crafted script, making each character stand out on its own and well apart from each other, through the subtle differential use of dialogue and imagery, which then enables an absorbing dance of their varying combinations as the story unfolds. It uses montage with good effect. It juxtaposes the past, present and future skillfully, but not tiringly, to keep the viewer engaged and thinking. In all these, it is clearly a cut above its contemporary field. The story moves from happiness and bliss through disenchantment and chaos into a nightmare, where the mind cannot know whether what it sees is real or not.
The main actors are marvelously directed – from the nearly theatrical and poetical Henry Jayasena, through the enigmatic and sensuous Swarna Mallawarachchi and the compliant yet resilient Vasanthi Chathurani, to the forceful and almost ebullient G.W. Surendra. What is more, Bandaranayake even directs himself – something that even seasoned directors think twice before setting out to do – in a pivotal yet complex role, depending more on the camera and the reactions than the lines. Indeed, the calculated economy of the lines (which are then delivered with consummate skill) and the use of conflict between characters creates one of the memorable roles in Sinhala cinema, one that we have obviously under-appreciated.
I wish the editing was more seamless, since a script like this requires a somewhat dream-like trip. And I wish the music was more thoughtfully done, perhaps a bit more reticent and emotive, and less repetitive.
Hansa Vilak promptly establishes Dharmasiri Bandaranayake as one of our best directors.
Samanala Sandhawaniya (2013)
A must-see-once, even for the serious cineaste
Samanala Sandhwaniya is about loneliness as a human condition and our yearning to connect with others. An adolescent boy accidentally picks up a love letter written by an unknown woman to an unknown man, and after reading it he tries to reach out to the woman who wrote it. He fails repeatedly to make contact with her, and the emptiness in him is consoled by his music compositions, which are enriched by his pain. After a battle with his alter ego, represented by his elder brother, he decides to let go of his yearning to reach her and to carry on with his life instead. But years later, he realizes that the emptiness has haunted him all the way into his successful music career and family life. Distraught and disappointed, he finally reconciles with his alter ego to make one last attempt to meet the woman whose writings have tormented him for so long, to conclude the unfinished business. And thereby hangs the finale.
Director Jayantha Chandrasiri brings us the truth that we reach fulfillment through our relationships, no matter how risky or painful they are, and not through avoiding them. He makes a poignant counterpoint to our contemporary society, where social media have made human contact 'safe' by introducing an electronic interface that can be switched on and off, promising to keep pain and risk at bay.
The crucial thread around which the story weaves is the interaction between the boy and his elder brother. This, unfortunately, is inadequately developed and nurtured, partly because the script is weak on this point and partly because of poor shot selections (which is more suited to the small, TV screen). The result is a lack of clarity or direction to the developing story, and the movie smolders, unable to absorb us. Furthermore, the mysterious woman could have been kept more at a distance, with tantalizing snippets of images and monologues; the movie could then have risen to a grander finale. The scene when the young boy briefly meets the woman in her boarding house is badly planned, biting too much to chew, and poorly edited. Its poignancy is lost.
Chandrasiri has taken a sprinkling of inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now", another movie that rolls out as a journey to a meeting with a mysterious character. His opening scenes, with the woman's monologue, borrow from Coppola's monologue. But the 'journey' quality is lost because the central thread is weak. Whereas Coppola develops a strong journey by linking his protagonist to the characters around him, Chandrasiri fails to do so.
Some crucial 'takes' that are meant to portray emotive, private moments are shot inappropriately as full fronts, rather than from the side. The same can be said about the final shot – it is beautifully shot, but from the wrong angle! I think Chandrasiri has inherited these habits from his teledrama days. Ruwan Costa's cinematography is immaculate, but wrong shots and angles make his camera a recording device without much of its 'voice.'
The good aspects of the movie are Darshana Ruwan's brave music score, Amarasiri Peiris's flawless singing, and the acting by Yasodha Wimaladharma and Uddika Premaratne, both giving pain and depth to their characters. Punsiri Dayaruwan shows enormous potential.
Chandrasiri should be commended for making an effort to explore a human condition, bravely avoiding commercial trappings. The movie is a pleasant, interesting watch, a 'must-see-once.' Let us hope that he will get more chances to make full length feature films. It will be interesting to watch him outgrow his teledrama days and become an articulate auteur, like the boy in the film.