TV Times

TV Times

In the name of Buddha
STARS: Shiju, Soniya, Jyothi Lal, Jayasuriya star in this movie
Director and Screenplay Rajesh Touchriver
The film ‘In The Name Of Buddha’ is one of the most gratuitously violent pictures ever made, this look at the recent past of Sri Lanka ends with the caption ‘May this film bring peace to the island’.

The war film is a different animal to approach than others, as violence is inherent. There seems little sense in mollycoddling. War has little to do with the gung-ho heroics once promoted by John Wayne. War is hell, war is pointless and war should be avoided at all costs.

Though it is not exactly true, but there are powerful ways of representing this on screen without forcing the cinemagoer to evacuate his lunch at the nearest loo. For a start, In the Name of Buddha is too long. Bad films seen unendurable at 90 minutes, let alone 150. This one, marking the directorial debut of the art director Rajesh Touchriver, could easily be cut down to two hours.

Touchriver’s lack of experience is cruelly evinced by his work with the actors, who give staggeringly amateurish performances. He is also guilty of trying the viewer’s patience by focusing on the mundane, presumably in an attempt to build a sense of atmosphere.

As Siva (Shiju) arrives at Heathrow to seek political asylum, Touchriver shows us him on the plane, asking a stewardess for a Scotch, visiting the loo, touching down, walking down endless corridors until he sits shell-shocked in an interrogation room. Here, finally, Siva begins his side of story, going back to Sri Lanka in 1986.

What follows is a catalogue of awkwardly staged battle scenes, unconvincing bombings and an endless array of brutality, humiliation, fortune, rape and murder. Shot in windscreen, it looks astounding with the jungle terrain gloriously caught by Raja Ratnam’s restless camera. There’s little else to recommend it, other than the urgent that message hammered home.

The film shows, since 1983, the government sponsored army and the Indian peace-keeping forces have systematically abused human rights by targeting Tamil minorities, torturing women and children and forcing almost a million Sri Lankans to seek asylum. The situation is intolerable, hard to comprehend and harder to stomach.

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