/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/FILM-SRI LANKA: Gov’t Stops Screening of Moving War Story

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Aug 8 2000 (IPS) - In the stillness of the dawn, a hearse carrying the body of a soldier killed by Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels wends its way along a village path toward the home of the slain young man.

A joyful sister runs out of a wood-and-mud-wall hut on hearing the toot of a horn, in the mistaken belief that her brother has returned on a long-awaited vacation from the battle front.

She stops in her tracks, stunned on seeing the hearse, and runs away with tears streaming down her face.

This scene is enacted almost everyday in one or more of the thousands of villages across Sri Lanka’s north-central region.

This part of the Indian Ocean island nation is the home of many of the government troops battling a 17-year-old, violent campaign by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is demanding an independent home for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil people.

But late July, the government thought it fit to stop the screening of a film on this theme by internationally-acclaimed young Sri Lankan filmmaker, Prasanna Vithanage. The government said the film’s screening would hamper the ongoing war with the LTTE.

‘Purahanda Kaluwara’, which translates as ‘death on a full moon day’, was withdrawn a week before its release in the prestigious fifth circuit cinemas as a film for all types of audiences.

This was done even though it had earlier been cleared by the government-appointed censor board, which also has two representatives from the army.

The 75-minute film tells the story of a blind father, brilliantly portrayed by veteran actor Joe Abeywickrema, who refuses to believe that his soldier-son had died on a full moon day at the war front and has returned home in a coffin.

More than 50,000 government soldiers, rebels and civilians have died in the secessionist violence. The body parts of soldiers blown to bits by rebel mines are not sent to the parents, who instead receive a symbolic, sealed coffin bearing the name of the dead soldier.

The climax of the film, which is set in a village near the north-central town of Medawachchiya, shows the father’s belief proved right when the sealed coffin is finally opened and found to contain only tree stumps.

‘Purahanda Kaluwara’ has won many international awards. Abeywickrema, as the blind man, won the best actor’s award at the Singapore Film Festival in 1999.

Also last year, the film won the Grand Prix prize at the Amiens International Film Festival in France and the International Film Critics Award at the 13th Frisbourg International Film Festival in Switzerland.

Its world premiere was held in 1997 in Japan. It has since been shown in international film festivals in India, Pakistan, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Britain and other nations. The film was funded by Japan’s NHK television agency.

Sri Lanka’s film industry, academics, media watchdogs and even journalists in state-owned newspapers have protested the decision to stop the film’s screening.

“Any argument that justifies the hiding of some ‘truths’ regarding the war in the north and the east from the people of this country, constitutes a violation of rights and a blatant display of political opportunism,” the Free Media Movement (FMM), a media watchdog, said in a statement.

Vithanage, 38 years old, says the “deferment” is worse than a ban. “A ban at least could be lifted but we have been living with this war for almost the past two decades and I have my doubts about the security situation improving in the real sense,” he said.

“If this is the case, as long as the war lasts, my film might never be released in Sri Lanka,” he added. The film has been shown here only on three occasions, all for private viewing.

It was banned by government censors in May, when the country was placed on high war alert after a series of Tamil Tiger successes. The ban was lifted when the country’s apex court struck down the censorship in June.

However, Sarath Amunugama, the minister in charge of the National Film Corporation (NFC), ordered the NFC to hold the film’s release because the country is still on a war footing. The NFC is the sole authority for film distribution in the country.

“The producer of the film may be informed that this film will be exhibited, as soon, as the security situation improves,” he said in a letter to NFC chairman Tissa Abeysekera, who was among those in the industry to have praised the film.

According to Sunila Abeysekera, a U.N. award-winning human rights activist, the film is a sarcastic comment on the war and its destructive nature.

“It would have a devastating impact on the people, showing them the ground realities of the war. It clearly depicts how the war is sapping all our energies, our resources,” she said.

“How can one make a judgement on a film without seeing it?” she asked, responding to the government’s view that screening the film may create unrest.

A moving scene in the film shows the men carrying the coffin into the slain soldier’s house, occasionally striking it against the walls of the hut.

An old man sits expressionless in a corner of the house, hearing the soft thuds as the coffin is moved around and voices in the background say “bring it here”, “no, move it there”.

The film has very little dialogue and no songs, but has spectacular shots of the Sri Lankan countryside. “I have not known any other film that is composed of image and sound so silent and suppressed,” said Vithanage’s co-producer, Makoto Ueda of NHK television.

“This silent, silent film strongly recites the everyday life of the people,” said Ueda.

Rights activist Abeysekera appreciates the film’s portrayal of how poverty makes the kin of dead soldiers forget their grief in the scramble for the sizeable monetary compensation from the government.

The blind father in the film, who does not believe that his son is dead, refuses to sign an official form that would entitle him to the compensation money. But he comes under pressure from his family and others from the village to do so.

Vithanage’s three previous films too are based on powerful social themes, but his industry colleagues find his latest creation a brilliant effort and a class above any other Sri Lankan movie.

“It is a stunning film…It gives a totally different perspective of the war from the way it is portrayed by the media and the politician,” said Ravindra Randeniya, a veteran actor and president of the Sri Lanka’s Film Actors’ Guild.

He says there is simply no rationale for the government to stop the film from being released. “If there is no rationale for banning the movie, then is there a political motive?” he wondered.