subject: Sri Lankan Sinhala Film Vidhu By Asoka Handagama at Sandeshaya Sri Lanka [print this page] Sri Lankan Sinhala Film Vidhu By Asoka Handagama at Sandeshaya Sri Lanka
Story
Finally, Handagama has broken ice. It was the second welcoming news of this year, relating to Sri Lankan cinema, after the news that Chinta and Udaya managed to arrange a premiere of their debut How I Wonder What You Are. The invitation stated "Asoka Handagama is back with a difference." The "difference" was too hard to predict, given that Handagama was/is a relentless rebelpar excellence, surviving in the alternative wave he established. Having directed five features, he could screen only two locally, while the rest were censored and/or forbidden. After the aborted mission with Aksharaya (Letters of Fire), Handagama's dominant silence gave a warning that Sri Lanka was not a space for free expression. In this context, the impending difference' seemed an anaesthetic to the cankering deadliness of the present cinema at home.
The film features an adolescent boy called Vidhu, presumably, an offshoot of a politician. With no birth certificate,
he is denied access to free education. His mother, a prostitute and pickpocket, educates him and pushes him up the ladder. With his inborn skill of speaking, he overwhelms the whole country and achieves what he has been "dreaming in daylight." Simultaneously, the politician, insinuated to be his father, tries to manoeuvre Vidhu to attract audiences to his superior's election rallies. The catalyst of the film revolves around the politicians' arduous attempt at manipulating the child into speaking on the political stage, and the child's resistance to speaking on the school stage at the same time. The story entails a layer of fantasy, and achieves a closure similar to that of Slumdog Millionaire.
In terms of commercial concerns, undoubtedly, Vidhu is going to be the hit of the year. Unlike the hitherto made Handagama films, this is a film for the whole family.' After the premiere, the majority seemed quite satisfied,' and almost everyone I spoke to and overheard, was applauding Handagama's "difference." The film embodies many aspects of a successful commercial film, as it is packed with action, suspense, mystery, humour and emotions. With the shift of the usual approach, the director allows his film to be dominated by colourful images and flamboyant music resembling a rock music style. More notably, unlike in Aksharaya, Thani Thatuwen Piyabanna, and Me Mage Sandai, Handagama appeals to the emotions of the audience and makes them shed tears. The scene of Vidhu's speech on the tree, with a stolen microphone, is an ideal example in this regard. This is a colossal departure in the Handagam style, which used to address the intellect of the audience, rather than emotions; the spectators' head, not their heart. Instantly, the film filled me with enormous pleasure, because Handagama is able to prove himself to be versatile with it. His filmography, oftentimes, made him vulnerable to be stigmatized as a "freak" by some Sri Lankan cinema intellectuals'. His war films were invariably branded as part of NGO sponsored anti-governmental projects. In the case of Thani Thatuwen Piyabanna, all the cinematic conceits were undermined by the over emphasised fact that he had exposed his wife's nudity. Finally, with Vidhu, he pats his critics' heads and knocks on them, exhibiting his capability to excel in the Somarathna Dissanayake tradition. Of course, Vidhu presents a criticism of the contemporary economic and socio-political issues of Sri Lanka. Vidhu's mother has to "sin", to keep the son alive. As she says to the son, her value vacillates by the day, and when it has no value, she cannot help but pick pockets. The politician, a former lover of hers, typifies a Sri Lankan politician entrapped in the impenetrable mire of corruption and misuse of power. However, unfortunately, the social criticism presented by the film does not contain an iota of the highly trenchant Handagama style, which is profound and poetic. Also, the character of the politician is relegated to a caricature, heightening the sense of humour. In these terms, I was overwhelmed by a recurring sense of sadness, on second thoughts. Considering that this was made by Handagama, the undaunted pioneer of an alternative wave, Sri Lankan cinematic wave, the unprecedented difference' is tragic.
In fact, more than a difference', it is a colossal transformation. As a friend of mine commented, "This is Handagama's metamorphosis from the butterfly with one wing to a wingless caterpillar". In my opinion, he was not a butterfly, but a poisonous wasp. Eventually, his fangs have been removed, and made him a butterfly, tamed and confined in a deadly cocoon. This situation raises the need to see as to why this evolution' was necessitated. As Handagama emphasised at the premiere, the film is "made for children". Frankly, it is made to pacify infantile temperaments of adults', in relevant authoritative bodies in charge of the cinema, who valourise children's films'.
Eventually, Handagama has been relegated to another supplier of commodities, and the shrine he built with his
previous films has been desecrated thus. Vidhu kills one of the last remaining hopes for Sri Lankan cinema, and by
no means is Handagama martyred in this death. The only remaining hope would be to assume that Handagama has
