‘How I Wonder What You are’, (Adaraye Anshu Mathryak), the debut film of duo Udaya Dharmawardhana and Chinthana Dharmadasa marks an important juncture of a new of generation of Sri Lankan cinema.
A novel story line, a fresh cast, extraordinary camera and lighting effects, sensitive editing, new filmmakers, a budget film with lowest cost and an alternative system for release, ‘How I Wonder What You are’ marks an entire new approach to filmmaking in Sri Lanka.
Set against the victory celebration at the end of a 30-year long war, a youth undergoing a traumatic loneliness and yearning for a meaning in his life and the presence of an ‘angel’ to fill the vacuum, the major part of the film is shot in a dilapidated urban lodge with two rooms and a bathroom.
A revolution against the Rs. 10 million budget movies that go to more than fifteen theatres in simultaneous release, the film of Udaya and Chinthana a film that cost only Rs. 300,000. “The total expense would have come to Rs. two million but most of the people including the cast played free of charge so that we could realize our dream of filmmaking”, Chinthana said speaking to the TV Times after the film was screened to a limited audience at Alliance Francaise, recently.
“To us filmmaking was a dream that could have never been realized. But we somehow wanted to write what we felt, what we understood, what we experienced during our youth lost in the towns” Chinthana a graduate from Peradeniya University and who had studied filmmaking here and abroad said. He is also a script writer for a number of films made by the directors of his generation.
To us the film is nothing but a medium of self expression. As youths came from the village and lived in the city with severe hardship without jobs the period that we experienced was what we wanted to capture in ‘How I wonder what you are’. During this period the only consolation is an affair but at times when that too comes to an end life becomes dreary and meaningless.
This was a common experience for many of our generation, Chinthan added. Launched as the ‘Cinema of Red apple, wine and blood’ under the tagline ‘When cinema becomes you…’ we initiated an untraditional and unconventional approach to filmmaking. This is not only a film but a film movement where we want to help any young filmmaker who wants to make films as a means of self expression, the young filmmakers said.
The film is a revolution against the feudal system of film releasing. The film is to follow and alternative screening tradition inaugurated by Asoka Handagama in his film ‘Me Mage Sandai’ (This is my Moon). Instead of the audience being made to go to theatres, the theatres are brought to where the audiences are and there is close contact with the filmmaker and the audience. Interestingly, the film is also dedicated to internationally awarded filmmaker Handagama as a tribute to his ‘unstoppable imagination’. “In cinema Handagama is a hero of our time,” said the young directors.
Asked about the excessive use of the cigarette, Chinthana said this film was a protest against the present political culture. ‘Mathata Thitha’ is the culture that has engulfed our entire political system.
How I wonder what you are’ is a trilogy where two more films are in the line.
The film stars Prasanna Mahagamage, Purnima Mohandhiram, Namal Jayasinghe, Mahendra Perera, Dayadeva Edirisinghe and Sirimal Wijesinghe.
It is written and directed by Udaya Dharmawardhana and Chinthana Dharmadasa while music is by Jayantha Dharmawardena and Art Direction is by Manoj Nalaka.
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