TV Times

TV Times

‘The Forsaken Land’
Sulanga Enu Pinisa (Forsaken Land) written and Directed by Vimukthi Jayasundara revolves around a few isolated characters living in a vast, desolate region close to the theatre of war.

The film follows each individual as they wander around aimlessly, and seemingly without hope; in a quest for meaning. Homeguard serviceman Anura (Mahendra Perera) does guard duty in a wind-swept, barren landscape, switching off with older, alcoholic Piyasiri (Hemasiri Liyanage). Both display a weariness born from years of lonely service in a cause too distant or abstract for them to believe in, or probably even remember.

Army men occasionally pass by, trying to dispel the lethargy with a bit of prankish behaviour, but the stillness and sense of waiting is never broken.

Sharing Anura's very basic home are his bored wife Lata (Nilupili Jayawardena), his maiden sister Soma (Kaushalya Fernando) and young girl Batti (Pumidika Sapurni Peiris). Each morning Soma is the first to get up, leaving the house and boarding a bus for work, although what she does is never revealed.

The inhabitants' basic inertia is interrupted only by a deep sense of sexual frustration, which both Anura and Lata periodically relieve with emotionless quickies. Soma alone tries to maintain some sort of routine and discipline.

After wearying years trapped in the same state of exhausted tension, the adults have ceased questioning what life can be, although Soma still holds out hopes of leaving the area and finding a job as a teacher. Only Batti, with the level-headedness of a child, describes the almost matter-of-fact numb despair when she makes a statement about "If I grow up" rather than "When.".

The film was shot in Sri Lanka last year with technical specialist from France and the cast includes Mahendra Perera, Kaushalya Fernando, Nilupuli Jayawardana, Hemasiri Liyanage and Saumya Liyanage.

Camera Channa Deshapriya, editor, Gisele Rapp-Meichler and Rukmal Nirosh, music, Nadeeka Guruge, art director, Rohan Samaradivakara, costume designer, Kanchana Thalpawila, sound (Dolby SRD), Alberto Crespo-Ocampo, Franck Desmoulins, Nicolas Naegelen; associate producers, Chandana Aluthge, Marie-Michele Cattelain.

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