Plus

Plus

Who is a virtuous woman?
Gini Kirilli (The Siren).Reviewed by Sirohmi Gunesekera
How does a good girl become a bad girl? Or are bad girls born and not made? What is this great distinction between a good woman and a bad woman? If a woman has sex with more than one partner, especially if she is not married, she becomes a so-called bad woman. But if a man has sex with more than one woman, whether he is married or not, he becomes a Real Man.

From where do these ideas come? Down the ages, fathers and mothers have passed on these ideas to their children and films, books and gossip reinforce these stereotypes.

The dividing line is marriage. So long as you get married, whether by hook or by crook, everything is tickety boo. In this film, the heroine goes back to the man who first raped her and there would be many who think that such couples live happily ever after. I forgot, it is not necessary to live happily ever after so long as you show the world that you are married.

It is easy to talk of broken homes and unmarried mothers, but what of a home where one partner controls the other and allows her or him to take out all their frustrations on the children?

This film is an eye-opener to the reality of Sri Lankan society. Once the girl reveals that she was raped, she becomes the victim of everybody's frustration and lust. In the police station she is barked at and she is just another case to the lawyer. When a woman is emotionally wounded by rape or divorced, there are men who unscrupulously play on her feelings to satisfy their sexual desires.

This film shows how even the bus conductor feels that he could take liberties with the heroine because now she had acquired glamour. Her seducers pay her compliments, thereby satisfying her bruised ego. They arouse her sexual appetite (natural to all men and women, whether virtuous or not) and frighten her by using their power over her.

The film shows unashamedly the weakness of men who enjoy sex with women, and unprotected sex at that, and are not ready to face the consequences. When the heroine becomes pregnant, all the men who once came after her back away. Why is it part of our culture that we consider suicide as a way out of problems? The heroine attempts suicide when her parents are informed that she is pregnant.

What kind of family life do people have that they cannot share a problem frankly within the family? The girl's father is busy listening to rock music and the cricket commentaries(yes, even in the backward village where the story is set). The villager follows the example set by the mahattaya and the nonas both of whom are neither setting the example nor leading a happy family life.So long as their son and daughter pass exams and "are doing well", some parents are not concerned whether the children handle their sex urges without getting someone pregnant.If it happens, why the system is there to pay and cover up if you are rich and well-known.

The lawyer comes in his luxurious Pajero and barely glances at the girl, his client, before walking into his office. Wild boar meat for the police inspector, cigarettes and alcohol for the lawyer apart from the money and the mental trauma the poor clients have to undergo.

The Sri Lankan system is well exposed in this film complete with the woman who accosts the rapist and suggests that he carries her into the jungle too as her husband is away. Lust or sexual appetite is to be satisfied at whatever cost and the poor, unloved heroine dreams and cuts out pictures of glamorous couples as she goes with any man who gives her the time of day, thereby becoming "the siren".

The film, based on a true story, is short but for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, the reality of life in today's Sri Lanka, including family life, is laid bare.

Back to Plus