‘Bambara Walalla’ has won a special jury mention at the REMI awards and an award for cinematography at the Houston film festival. It is an outstanding creation of art by début filmmaker Athula Liyanage who also takes on a main role in the film. Liyanage has thus chosen a hitherto untrodden path by any Sri Lankan film maker.
Merely winning awards at an international film festival does not necessarily mean that the quality of a film is high, because there are awards galore at international film festivals these days. Therefore I had some apprehension before viewing the film, wondering whether it could be as good as it was said to be. Local audiences who see this film will not be familiar with the psychoanalytical aspects of the film which need not be emphasized because it can be evaluated and appreciated as a whole presentation of artistic creation.
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| Athula Liyanage: Not afraid to take the untrodden path of Lankan cinema |
The filmmaker’s primary objective I believe has been an authentic, artistic portrayal of a stratum of our society and the decadence which has taken place. The director, no doubt though fully aware and conversant with the psychoanalytical aspects of his creation does not try to emphasize this aspect, allowing the natural behaviour of the characters to speak for them.
Basically the film is a true to life story with characters and incidents we see and hear every day in Sri Lanka. The Godfathers who thrive on murder, the killers who are pawns in their hands, incest, gang warfare to gain supremacy, the craving to make money at any cost, illicit liquor, poverty, highway robbery and the general impunity of the law in society, have all been blended in to making a superb cinematic creation. The audience is spellbound not by the action, but by the cycle of evil. The harsh fact is that this is a depiction of a segment of present day society. There are no villains or heroes.
The film is the story of Podi Eka, a village teenager without any education living with his poverty-stricken mother and sister. He cannot even write Amma (mother) Akka (sister) mama (me). Instead he draws three crosses on the wall in charcoal depicting the threesome. He works for his stepfather carrying water to the illicit brewery and experiences the rape of his sister by the stepfather, the bootlegger and the consequent suicide of his sister. He murders his stepfather in vengeance and spends 17 years in jail, returning to the village as an adult to help his uncle in farming and cattle rearing. He is still called Podi Eka.
His attempts to start a new life fail on account of the tragic death of his mother and his own brutish desires. He attempts to take sexual advantage of his uncle’s daughter who spurns him and spits on his face to which he reacts instantly by cutting off the girl’s long thick hair. The uncle takes revenge by setting fire to his house where his mentally unsound mother was sleeping. It is at this stage that he is found by Mel Mahattaya the funeral undertaker after having been attacked by the villagers and thrown into a gutter.
Mel Mahattaya is initially introduced to the audience as a benevolent, caring, selfless, social worker. Eventually we come to know the inner side of him, an unrepentant beastly character who will kill anybody who crosses his path. Both the characters of Podi Eka and Mel Mahattaya yearn for love which they don’t get. Such characters are not uncommon in society. Podi Eka becomes Mel’s acolyte. Having used him for his sordid acts of killing competitors, Mel plans to kill Podi Eka. This backfires and Mel gets killed. The body is thrown into a burning funeral pyre - he is the undertaker burning in his own fire. Podi Eka not only becomes the owner of the business but takes over Mel’s mistress as his wife.
Bambara Walalla in fact is a form of dance in the southern part of Sri Lanka where the dancer rotates within a slanted perpendicular axis at high speed similar to a top (Bambaraya) while moving in a circle. The dancer has to keep rotating incessantly so as not to lose his balance. “Podi Eka” too has to keep spinning to survive.
A psychiatrist would say that Podi Eka is a personification of “Id”, the primitive mind of the human being. It gives vent to fundamental desires and impulses. Podi Eka kills his stepfather unhesitatingly and his behaviour is unchanged on returning from jail. A professional psychiatrist would go further and explain that the killing of the stepfather is the phenomenon of the “Oedipus complex” where the father is the rival and the child has hatred towards him.
Athula Liyanage is an extraordinary filmmaker who has made use of certain social aberrations and added value to them by trying to interpret the causes in cinematic form. He has broken new ground by not adhering to these norms and having been bold enough to take on the raw reality of a segment of society. He does not seek any sympathy or justification for the behaviour and actions of the players in this social stratum, in their struggle to survive in the competitive commercialized world.
Most of the scenes are enacted in an undertaker’s place of business where stacks of cheap coffins are stored and the cleaning and embalming of bodies takes place. This sometimes may unsettle some of the viewers, but it is needed to enhance the drama being enacted.
I would categorize this film as more suitable for a mature audience with a discerning mind but I doubt whether it is going to cover even its production costs. I watched it on a weekend at 6.30 p.m. at the Regal cinema where the hall was not even one quarter full.
My only hope is that this type of creativity will not be allowed to fade away due to poor audience response. |
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