{"id":238157,"date":"2024-08-13T17:30:22","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=238157"},"modified":"2024-08-21T05:39:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T00:09:44","slug":"paradise-a-drama-film-that-reflects-the-cruel-face-of-the-global-social-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/paradise-a-drama-film-that-reflects-the-cruel-face-of-the-global-social-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Paradise: A Drama Film That Reflects The Cruel Face Of The Global Social Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Darshana Medis<\/a> –<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Paradise<\/i>, the latest movie of acclaimed Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage<\/a><\/span>, has now been screening theatres worldwide. Produced by Newton Cinema<\/i> of India and presented by Mani Ratnam’s Madras Talkies<\/i>, this multilingual film starring Malayali, Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala cast has already won several foreign accolades. Under the existing fascist persecuting laws on art in Sri Lanka, this work was not censored like one of the Vithanage’s earlier films Purahanda Kaluwara<\/i> (Death on a Full Moon Day, 1997) only because of these international tributes. Indeed, this is a fascinating, absorbing and tendentious film that makes the connoisseur rethink about his own opinions. It marks a qualitative perfection in the director’s evolution as a filmmaker. It also stimulates fellow artists to become more conscious towards the global socio-political reality.<\/p>\n

\"\"The plot unfolds with the disgraceful statement of Sri Lankan government declaring country’s economic bankruptcy. It is an unprecedented period of social crisis in the history of the island. Unable to bear multiple hardships \u2013 shortages of food, medicine, gas and fuel, prolonged power cuts, price hike of essentials, etc. \u2013 the people burst into streets with anti-government protests risking their lives amidst Covid<\/i> pandemic. Even though the story revolves around atrocious domestic socio-economic conditions the subject matter ideally fits for many societies globally, which undergo similar situations under capitalism.<\/p>\n

Despite collapsed tourist industry, a handful of foreigners \u2013 especially Indian petty bourgeoisie \u2013 taking the advantage of reduced costs in the hotel industry visited the troubled \u2018paradise\u2019 where President Gotabaya Rajapaksa<\/a><\/span>\u2019s dollar-hungry government was ready to accept them with prostration. The sobriquet ‘Paradise’ was given to Lanka by European travellers who came in the Middle Ages. They borrowed this from Parse poet Amir Khusrau\u2019s ode to Kashmir. The British colonialists given the same to Lahore. Be it Kashmir or Lanka or Lahore it was granted solely due to scenic beauty of the hill country. However, the post-independence Sri Lankan rulers who installed a nation-state as an agency of imperialism abused this epithet for their political and business interests (some artists glorified the “agricultural war” of the United Front<\/i> government in 1970\u2019s by equalling country to a \u2018Kethumathi<\/i>\u2019 (Promised Land). This so-called ‘paradise’ was completely bankrupted by the capitalist rulers within half a century. The director artistically portraits this profound irony throughout the film.<\/p>\n

A Kerala middle-class couple, Kesav (Roshan Mathew) and Amritha (Darshana Rajendran), arrived in Sri Lanka knowing that it is a ruined ‘paradise’. They come with the intention of celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary at a low cost. There is a package called \u201cRamayana Trail\u201d especially targeting Indian tourists promoted by Ceylon Tourist Board under past Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/a><\/span> government collaborating with Indian mediators. Even photographs of ancient inscriptions were distorted to make \u2018Ravana\u2019 legend looks like a historical truth. When these acts could no longer be tolerated, an open debate was called by Royal Asiatic Society<\/i> where some prominent \u2018Ravana\u2019 aficionados including the consultant hired by <\/span>Tourist Board were shamefully retreated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed Ramayana<\/i> is a marvellous leitmotif not only for poets but also for ruling classes in both countries. It was a fruitful business strategy even in medieval times. Thirteenth century Buddhist work Saddharamarathnavali<\/i> says that North Indian barons spent money in order to popularize stories like \u201cRama-Sitha\u201d <\/i>in the island of Lanka. In both countries, this has also been a springboard for harassing ethnic minorities. On the other hand, the capitalist rulers of India exploit the brave literary character of Ram when exerting political influences on the regional states. In 1988, Prime Minister Rajeev Ghandi sent provisions to Jaffna by air forcibly. In 2021, Minister of Defence of the Bharathiya Janatha Party<\/i> Rajnath Singh said that \u201cWhat Lord Ram did in Lanka, and Lord Krishna did in Mathura, the Indian armed forces did the same in Bangladesh in 1971.\u201d This contains far-reaching implications. Looking at the humble crowd who are protesting everywhere, Kesav and Amritha approach “Ravana\u2019s Kingdom” or \u2018paradise\u2019 in the central hill country.<\/p>\n

Facing an economic crisis, Kesav has submitted an application to the Netflix <\/i>to produce a Hindi version of the popular South Korean TV series called Squid Game<\/i>. This is a game where one risks his life for a bag of price money. It symbolizes neo-liberal consumerist dog fight. Kesav learned that his application had been approved. Being extremely happy his interest focuses not on his vacation but achievement of his business goal.<\/p>\n

The visiting couple stay in a vintage bungalow surrounding tea plantations and shanties of Tamil estate workers. Whilst they are looking at the veritable paradise that spreads around them \u2013 the spectacular rolling hills and wild mountain ranges \u2013 a gunshot is heard. When Kesav found out that it was an animal hunt, he asks “Is venison available here?” Accordingly, the Tamil custodian of the bungalow, Shree (Sumith Ilango) brings his rifle and goes into the forest with the guests. Soon, a full grown sambhar deer appears but Amritha, fascinated by its beauty, foils the shot. Like this animal the gun too creates strong imageries throughout the film. The sambhar symbolizes innocence of Amritha and vulnerability of estate workers whereas gun symbolizes consumerist, pitiless mentality of Kesav and state terrorism represented by the police. Anton Chekov once said that if a gun appears at the beginning of a short story, it must go off at the end. The director shows us that this saying ideally fits cinema too: the film ends with guns blazing, creating a dramatic tragedy.<\/p>\n

The driver and tour guide Andrew (Shyam Fernando) who accompanied his clients to the scenic locations associated with “Rama-Sitha” story has a well-rehearsed version of Ravana. However, he is startled by Amritha’s unexpected question: “Is there only the Valmiki Ramayana<\/i>? There are three hundred. In the Jain Ramayana<\/i>, Sitha faces off against Ravana.\u201d This is true. A. K. Ramanujan the folklorist who gathered more than three hundred conflicting Ramayanas<\/i> revealed that some of them are even older than Valmiki’s story.\u00a0 <\/span>The temple of worship falls on Andrew’s head! Sometimes Amritha jokes that it is high time for Ravana to wake up from his slumber. The film artistically explodes \u2018Ravana\u2019 mythology and this is invaluable when considering false trends emerging in historiography in both Sri Lanka and India.<\/p>\n

One night, burglars break into the bungalow, scare young couple and steal their laptops and cell phones. Kesav gets upset because not only the details of his business contract but also his means of communication are lost. This incident leads to a spiritual conflict that develops gradually between money oriented husband and nature loving wife who thinks still they can enjoy life. The police brutally beat up three estate youths who are arrested on suspicion. At the same time that Paradise<\/i> was being filmed, a Sinhalese inmate convicted of petty theft was killed by the police in Kandurugasara Open Prison. According to the post-mortem examination, he was hit with more than three hundred blows. There were 450 to 500ml blood accumulated in his each buttock. If the police treated an oppressed man belonging to the ethnic majority in this way, what can be said about minorities?<\/p>\n

The estate community lives without even basic facilities since British colonial era and the film shows us that theft is a social phenomenon rather than an individual vice. Not only thief but also Sergeant Bandara is a creation of crisis-ridden society. His brutal kicks are an expression of his own mental crisis. Trained as a deerhound by the capitalist state machine he always behaves like a typical police officer. He is stirred by Kesav\u2019s threat of complaining to the Indian High Commissioner and makes a vile attempt to produce a culprit. As muscles of his face move, it is clear what he is dressing up for. Mahendra Perera plays the role brilliantly. This is a terrible reality faced by the downtrodden all over the world. Body camera footages of constables prove that this is happening almost daily in America especially against black people. One of the beaten youth is suffocated and rushed to the hospital and Amritha too follows his stretcher. Even though her subconscious tells her that the poor man may be innocent she hesitates to stand up for him. He dies and the blame goes to the power outage. This time Amritha asks “Aren’t we responsible?” but nobody cares. However, the guilty consciousness of accountability directly appeals to the audience sinking very bottom of the connoisseur\u2019s conscience. He feels that he is also responsible for that crime because he too contributed to the maintenance of this cruel, wretched and corrupt state, in one way or another.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Bandara, who is proud of his forty-year service, only remembers later to search bedroom where the robbery took place. Determining that the theft was an “inside job”, he now rushes to Shree and the Muslim cook Iqbal (Azher Samsoodeen). Fearing that he too will suffer same fate as the innocent young man, Shree aims his rifle at the sergeant, creating a huge tension. Meanwhile, on seeing the dead body of the youth, the angry estate community attacks police station and the bungalow. Maddened, Kesav takes the machine gun of wounded sergeant and opens fire at the stone pelting crowd. Unable to bear this endless gunfire, Amritha grabs Shree\u2019s rifle and shoots towards her husband.<\/p>\n

Instead of grasping powerful objective reality that has been transformed into artistic truth as a whole, the majority of people talking about the film seem to be fragmenting it like blind men who described an elephant. Idealists see Kesav’s behaviour as a mere spiritual crisis. Some Indian film critics reduced the film to a lesson of philosophy and psychology. Some feminists simply glorify Amritha as a heroine while others oppose it insisting that she could have saved the young man from death by putting pressure on her husband or the police! If such peculiarity is allowed, the value of artwork will fall to zero. A social activist from plantation sector participating in a discussion about the film in Colombo emphasized the community name “Maleiyaha (Mountain Tamil)” instead of \u201cestate workers\u201d. The pernicious aim of this recently emerged identity politics is to divide the Tamil and Sinhalese estate workers scattered in the island.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some postmodernists diverge the real significance of the film by highlighting relativity of ‘pleasure’. Just as Marx said that liberation is not a mental act but historical task, pleasure too is not a self-centred achievement but collective realization brought about by historic conditions. The primitive man enjoyed common pleasure based on sharing rather than individual amassing. It was reduced to a relative, merely singular concept by division of labour in the class society. We live in a society where one person’s happiness becomes another’s unhappiness. The connoisseur feels that the couple can enjoy absolute pleasure only when the world outside themselves is also genuinely happy. Spawning this feeling in the connoisseur clearly exposes political consciousness of the director: is it possible to please the oppressed and poor including working class by anyway other than social revolution?<\/p>\n

The powerful screenplay (Prasanna Vithanage and Anushka Senanayake) though short with minimal dialogues leaves director tell the tale largely through camerawork: a mixture of distant backdrop sceneries and inquisitive close-ups. The soundscape \u2013 forest sounds, human voices, vehicle and machine noises, gunshots, the sound of police baton and iron rod, even the silence is acoustic, and it has a life of its own. K. Krishna Kumar’s attractive music intensifies emotions and feelings and meanings of the scenes as well. The only playback song heard at the end embodies the tragedy. The cinematographer (Rajeev Ravi), editor (Sreekar Prasad), lighting administrator and make-up artist have given their maximum contribution.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are different opinions about the final act: whether Kesav was shot by mistake or was it a deliberate decision? Indeed, how should an attentive connoisseur solve the uncertainty contained in this dominant couple of frames that bring culmination of the film? Even though an apolitical character in the beginning, Amritha, a very sensitive and intelligent woman who eventually identifies with the working class, not only treats her heartless husband or the corrupt capitalism he symbolizes with a fatal shot but also not hesitates to question Andrew’s verdict that it was a mistake. She is a heroine in this sense. No matter how Kesav died, it is clear that the entire tragedy was a result of the crisis-ridden capitalist system. Even though global economic crisis erupted from the weakest link it is experiencing, more or less, all over the world. During the film’s setting, there arose massive farmers’ revolts in India and recently the capitalist government of Bangladesh suppressed the mass struggle with blood. Indian nationals Roshan Mathew and Darshana Rajendran got the strength to engage in an excellent performance metamorphosing into lead roles, and the international film community comes forward to appreciate this beautiful and thought provoking film because of this great common factor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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