THE ISLAND MENTALITY

I became a filmmaker because of my love of Sinhala cinema as a child. The beautiful people, the thrills, the songs - they all combined to hook me for life. I also learnt about the language of cinema from the classic films of Lester James Peries, and the possibilities of an alternative kind of cinema from Dharmasena Pathiraja. But the exposure to the films of Styajit Ray and to other foreign films, mainly from Europe and Japan, made me realize that there was something radically wrong with mainstream Sinhala cinema. I felt this had to be corrected even before I got into active filmmaking. At that time I knew nothing about the theories of 'script structure' and had no vocabulary with which to express my concerns. It was something, which I just felt. There was lack of coherence and consistency in sinhala film. Some scenes were brilliant, but many were just crude and shoddy. There was a lack of attention to details and the length of the films did not match with what the filmmaker had to say.

I call this attitude the 'island mentality'. Filmmakers asked why they should bother with getting the details right when their films are going to be seen only by Sri Lankan audiences. And besides, they felt that since our cinema halls are not equipped with good projectors and sound systems, the mistakes and shortcoming would not be noticed. When I started making films I aimed beyond the island.

I wanted to make films in the way that European and Japanese and other filmmakers did. This meant I had to pay attention to the details. One such example is the sound dubbing of my last three films. I spent a lot of time and money getting the voice dubbing exactly right. It is still not perfect. Only sync sound shooting will solve this and I have yet to make a film in this manner.

My films have gone against the grain of Sri Lankan filmmakers in many aspects. The most obvious difference is the length of my films. I have still to cross the ninety-minute mark. I do not consciously set a time limit to my films. My only criterion is this search for truth through the contradiction exposed in the 'inside out' process. This invariably leads to getting rid of much that is unnecessary in each scene. I believe that persevering with the search for truth invariably leads to brevity and sometimes even silence.

THE END