Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Laleen Jayamanne
Myth must be understood as ideological dy- images than before, though given perhaps in the spirit
namics. of Let them eat cake! Then why have a title like
Hunger for Images at a time when some people speak
Myths embody the conflicts and aspirations of of a need for an ecology of image production? Sri
a collective anguish; they compress, transfigure Lankan cinemas short history (which coincides with its
and objectify areas of distress and yearning history as an independent nation) creates in its viewers
which society cannot bear to confront directly; (certainly in this distanced viewer) a longing, a craving, a
and they manifest only as much reality as a hunger to see something different. The relatively
common level of consciousness can bear.* sporadic and yet intense critical literature (largely
Daddy can we go and see a picture today? Re- journalistic, written almost exclusively in Sinhalese with
current question of a girl-child growing up in a the exception of the work in the L a n h Gunrdian over
semi-feudal, English speaking, Sinhala upper- the last decade) on our rather impoverished national
middle class family in Sri Lanka of the 1950s. A cinema shows this. It is a writing that has faith in what
questiodrequest posed to a father about seeing this cinema can achieve but hasnt as yet.
films, which were then generally referred to as I have studied about 102 films out of the 400-odd
pictures. The seeing of pictures, the desire to made between 1947 and 1979. This analysis was
see addressed to the father because he paid for completed in 1981. In the first part of this paper I will
the tickets; he went with us. The seeing was dif- analyze a small sample from this work in order to show
ficult if not impossible without him. The father how certain representations of femininity have been
was central in the exchange of money as well as produced by this cinema through a variety of codes both
the exchange of meanings and therefore of de- narrative and visual (i.e., genre, mise-en-scene, editing,
sire. Whenever something was not clear in a point-of-view, framing and so on). The ideological
picture I, seated between my father and implications of these representations will be discussed
mother, would lean toward my father rather to see if there are significant changes over the decades.
than my mother, and ask softly what it meant.
And he would explain. In the second part of this paper I wish to examine
the 1980s work of three major directors, Dharmasiri
The linear exchange between father and Bandaranayake, Vasantha Obeyesekere and Sumithra
daughter came full circle in the private viewing Peries via the image of a single actress Swarna
of the films which form the body of this thesis, Mallawarachchi. Ive chosen to do this because I feel
where the often dozing father (close to death) that Swarna Mallawarachchi brings something
would wake up and loudly ask for an qualitatively new to the Sri Lankan cinema - a set of
explanation of something in the film from an visual traits and possibilities (narrative, emotional,
irritable daughter who no longer wanted her intellectual) that help problematize the simple binary
father to mediate in any form whatever between oppositions which structure the mythical narratives of
her and the screen. the generic cinema, which are:
Introduction Rich vs Poor
3,
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Published by Duke University Press
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
the bad girl opposition to see how the very structure almost all of these films. The filmic construction of the
of simple oppositions are rendered inoperative in the family and the positioning of women therein will be
more sophisticated films of the 1%. The path towards examined in detail further on.
this important complexity in the representation of When conceptualizing the notion of generic cinema
Woman had already been prepared by the best work in Sri Lanka there are two major factors which have to
of Lester James Peries and Dharmasena Pathiraja. inform the analysis: first, that Sri Lankan cinema derives
The conjunction of feminism and cinema in the its formal and narrative conventions from Indian cinema
West in the 1970s enabled forms of knowledge and ways (Hindi and Tamil) as well as from the tradition of semi-
of knowing hitherto unknown. I was not alone in operatic drama called Nurti which also had an Indian
feeling that knowledge, pleasure and desire, experiences (Parsee) origin; second, that Sri Lanka is an
which were previously painfully discrete, need no longer underdeveloped capitalist country where feudal
be so because of the radical epistemological shift in the ideologies and practices still play an important function.
study of the humanities marked by ambitions of This conjuncture has had a determining influence on
interdisciplinary endeavor, which led to the constitution the signifying practices produced therein.
of the disciplinary field known as cinema studies. According to Paul Willeman,4 four main cinematic
In this context the examination of the processes of genres can be distinguished in India:
the production of knowledge, of meaning, became cen- 1. The spectacle epic, usually continuing the tradition
tral. We were methodologically equipped to inquire of mythologicals;
into the production of the Feminine the notion of
Woman in cinema. It was not as if something called 2. The family melodrama;
Feminist content lay hidden in films to be uncovered 3. Crime thrillers;
by feminists but rather that new methods of conceptu- 4. Social problem drama suggesting the need for some
alizing language and image, made possible by the con- sort of reform.
junction of linguistics, semiotics, narrative analysis, and The mythological genre created by D.G. Phalke, the
psychoanalysis, when brought to bear on cultural arti- Indian silent film director, is, according to Gandhy and
facts like film, enabled ways of destabilizing traditional Willeman, as unique a product of Indian cinema as the
meanings and interpretations which accrued to those Western is of Hollywood. Like the Western, the Indian
objects. Methodologies with varying degrees of sophis- mythological film has its own set of heroes, heroines,
tication did produce new readings, ideas, values and villains and vamps (the gods, goddesses and demons of
hopes. the Hindu pantheon); its unique style of costume and
PART ONE settings, fight and action sequences, and a basic moral
stance of Good ultimately triumphing over Evil. Like
Out of a total of about 400 made within a period of the Western, the Indian mythological film has main-
32 years (that is, 1947-1979),I have viewed and studied tained a captive audience.S Of these four Indian gen-
102 films, of which 78 can be classified as belonging to a res, the family melodrama is the one which has become
generic cinema. These 78 films can be divided in the the dominant genre in the Sri Lankan cinema. The
following way: mythological genre of predominantly Hindu India is ab-
(a) 35 films out of 78 are based on a plot structure which sent in predominantly Buddhist Sri Lanka. The differ-
has to do with the following problem: married life - ence in religions may have determined this absence.
conflicts - resolution of conflicts. There are no more than five thrillers in the entire his-
(b) 30 films out of the 78 are based on a plot structure tory of the Sri Lankan cinema. The genre of social
which has to do with the following problem: boy-meets- problems does not exist as an independent category, but
girl - conflicts - resolution of conflicts. its elements can be found within the family melodrama.
(c) 13 films do not fit into either (a) or (b). I shall argue The concept of melodrama will be used in the
further on that this category also belongs to the generic following way. The etymology of the compound word is
cinema but is different in terms of the area of experi- as follows: melo derives from the Greek word
ence dealt with. melos which means song, music. The Greek word
The other 24 films are directed by the major drama is derived from dran which means do, act,
directors of the Sri Lankan cinema, i.e., its auteurs. perform. Melodrama in early use meant a stage play in
An aspect of their work that I find significant is the way
which songs were interspersed, and in which orchestral
music accompanied the action. Now a dramatic piece
in which they rework elements from the genre cinema. I
have chosen to focus on how they rework myths of the characterized by sensational incident and violent
feminine rather than deal with the wider questions of appeals to the emotions, but with a happy ending.6
the importance of their work in transforming the history The origin of the Indian melodramatic genre in the
of the Sri Lankan cinema. cinema, which combines songs, dance and music with ac-
tion which can be both comic and tragic and have either
The centrality of the family is a significant factor in
Published by Duke58
University Press
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
a happy resolution or a sad one, lies in the massive de- traditions, many still anchored in feudal social
mographic changes in postwar India and the consequent relations, are not subjected to the same intense
mutation of folk representational practices such as the- pressures towards modernization and the
ater and storytelling.7 The m a s migration of the im- creolization that could be seen at work in Japan
poverished Indian peasantry into townships and major or Hong Kong since the last world war.
cities created an urban lumpenproletariat. Not only Consequently Indian cinema enjoys a measure
were they excluded from the basics of shelter, employ- of freedom as to which aspects of H o l l y w d
ment and other social amenities but they were also to- cinema it absorbs and how these are to be
tally cut off from the traditional cultural life of the vil- articulated within Indian traditions of
lage, which included folk dancing, drama, storytelling representation. One major result of this
and singing by itinerant story tellers. The only cultural peculiar place Indian cinema occupies vis-a-vis
activity to which these deracinated people had access the dominant face of world cinema, i.e.
was the cinema. Thus a visit to the cinema has to give Hollywood, is the relative inaccessibility of
them a sort of total entertainment. It has to give them Indian genres and aesthetic conventions to
all the various forms - tragedy, comedy, song, dance - Western audiences. Another aspect of this
as well as help them forget their present misery.8 In same feature is the mismatch between e.g.
response to the needs of this captive audience the Bom- European-American genres and Indian ones
bay film studios developed a form of entertainment which are difficult to distinguish according to
with crude sentiment and low comedy, songs and sexy Western criteria. There is a relation of
dances. This is not to say that they gave the public only imitation, even outright plagiarism, as well as a
what they asked for. Folk culture can be treated in relation of uncompromising difference between
many ways and the Bombay manner only cheapened the the two types of cinema.
form and the repetitious presentation of this form of en- The cultural specificity of Indian generic cinema vis-
tertainment created new patterns of taste.q Thus ele- a-vis Hollywood is important to keep in mind. Indian
ments of folk culture were taken and used to create an cinema is not an underdeveloped version of Hollywood
eclectic form of entertainment which gratified the but a product which is specific to the Indian context.
marginalized urban masses who lived in a cultural But the same cannot be said of the Sri Lankan generic
vacuum. cinema in relation to Indian cinema. In Sinhalese criti-
In Sri Lanka too, the family melodrama (which has cal discourse on the Sri Lankan cinema, the word for
some of the major elements of the Indian melodrama medical prescriptions, vattoru, is used as a derogatory
such as songs and dances), continues to entertain her of the phenomenon of dependence on the generic for-
people. The etymology of the word entertain means mula derived from Indian cinema. The condemnation
to hold, to keep in a certain state, to keep up, of the formula film has been a consistent critical posi-
maintain, to engage, to keep occupied the attention of, tion in Sri Lanka.
hence, to discourse to, of something, to occupy time, to
engage agreeably the attention of, to amuse.1 What (a) The Formula of Marital Life
holds and keeps the Sri Lankan audience hooked on a
Husband is Wfes God (1964)
formula has to do with the articulation and circulation
of certain desires. As a basic generalization it is correct There is one heaven for woman
to say that the narrative process of the generic In the heaven there is one god,
melodrama in each of its three sub-groups is generated That god is her husbandiowner Ah Ah Ah. . .
by the expression of (hetero) sexual desire. The The credits of this film are accompanied by this song
hermeneutic (the posing and resolution of questions of sung by a chorus of men and women. The film ends
mysteries) which is thus articulated has to do with the with a male voice declaring: For the good woman who
question of the realization or failure of that desire. The preserved her virginity, the husband is the wifes god.
vicissitudes of heterosexual desire are articulated within Then the chorus of men and women repeat the opening
a series of discourses to do with class, family, kinship, song. The film is a melodramatic illustration and rein-
caste and religion. Given the generic specificity of the forcement of this maxim. I will analyze the narrative
Sri Lankan melodrama which derives from the Indian structure and the construction of iconography in order
melodrama, the element of spectacle vis-a-vis song and to foreground the structuring of the maxim. Rukmani
dance is central. Devi, the earliest superstar of the Sri Lankan cinema,
The second major factor in considering the Sri plays the role of Chandra who has had to marry the son
Lankan generic cinema is the problematic of narrative of her fathers boss in order to save her father from go-
economy in an underdeveloped capitalist economy with ing to jail. For the sake of the family honor she has had
strong feudal remnants. Willeman makes a cogent point to sacrifice her love for a young doctor. The film opens
when he says that: with a chance encounter between Chandra, her husband
For better or worse, indigenous cultural and her abandoned lover. The husband has been
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stricken with the disease in which the doctor has be- saw it then?
come a reputed specialist. These highly contrived I wiU come behind you.
chance encounters and twists of plot are the very stuff I will come to where you go.
of melodrama. Why is this the dying husbands last wish? What
While the husband is hospitalized Chandra and the does it signify? How is it different to the other formulaic
doctor have a confrontation which the husband Scenes which represent the bride as icon? The dying
overhears in typical melodramatic style. We learn that husband desires to see his wife in her virginal state. The
the doctor is still in love with her and treasures her complying wife fulfills his desire without quite knowing
photograph, which he says is the only comfort in his sad why he so desires. She conjectures in her song: Do you
life. Her reply overheard by her eavesdropping husband remember my beautiful figure as you saw it then? Her
is a perfect encapsulation of wifely feudal ideology. desire is to activate his; his is more to do with his
Chandra: As a wife who asks you to care for her anxieties of potency and masculinity which the virginal
husbands life, as a wife of a critically ill patient, as an image helps to alleviate. The fact that they do not have
obedient wife of a beloved husband, I ask you to return children is conveyed, though not verbally. Chandra
my photograph. Your duty is to dry my tears and not visits a little girl in the same hospital and is shown to be
destroy my reverence for my husband/master. The very maternal to her. In a cultural sense a childless
words used are swami bakti. The former word has couple is Seen to be lacking. In this scene then, the
feudal connotations of master and is also the word bridal image of the wife works as a fetish which activates
used for husband while the latter means religious the husbands fantasies.
worship or reverence. Thus the very words used The most puzzling scene occurs when the doctor
reinforce the inequality between man and woman; announces to the good wife that her husband has pulled
language reinforces hierarchical positioning. The through the operation. Hearing the good news she
operative word in the wifes rhetorical outburst is drops dead. This contradicts her earlier statement to
duty. Within feudal ideology an individual does not the doctor that she would take her life if her husband
act according to hisher feelings and desires but dies. In fact as a dutiful wife she should have, instead,
according to certain prescribed modes of behavior broken into a song of joy and been full of gratitude to
which are determined according to kinship ties. the doctor who saved her husband.
Therefore she adds the following: Life is not built on The last scene is in the clouds. It shows the
the foundation of love. My duty now is to be a good apotheosis of the virtuous wife. She looks stoically
obedient wife. The heart is a sacred place and for a tragic and is silent with her loose hair blowing in the
married woman the only god who owns it is her wind. She is accompanied on the cloud by the little girl
husband. This dialogue is intercut with a close-up of in the hospital, who has also died. Chandras death and
the husband, very pleased by this demonstration of his final apotheosis are very intriguing. Why does it
wifes virtue. happen? Why is she grimly silent in the last image? In
The next climactic illustration of feudal wifely order to answer these questions it is necessary to go
ideology happens at the bedside of the husband on the back to an earlier scene between the husband and wife.
eve of his major operation. The husband summons both The context is the husbands hearing that the doctor is
the doctor and his wife who stand on either side of his refusing very lucrative marriage proposals brought by
bed in medium shot. The magnanimous husband makes his mother, because he is still pining for the woman who
a request of the doctor to take care that his wife does jilted him. The virtuous husband does not know at this
not remain a widow if he dies. (The wife is not asked if point that the woman concerned is in fact his wife.
the plan suits her). Her response is a song:
Husband: What a wretched woman she is, loves
Do you ask me to be caressed by another? one man and marries another. It is unfortunate
Tell me, my golden one, oh tell me. when an intelligent young man loves a fickle
You have made this bride into an woman.
Obedient wife, I have done no wrong. Wife: That girl-child could be a good person,
Chandra in her speech to the doctor does not say dont you think?
that she does not love him. All she says is the necessity Husband: How can that be? If she really loves
of doing ones duty. The last line, I have done no him with a permanent kind of love then her love
wrong, suggests a degree of anxiety on the part of the
for her husband is a false one. If she loves her
good wife which will be referred to later. husband now then her former love for the
The husbands last request is to see his wife dressed doctor was a false love. Why are you crying, is it
in her bridal sari. She does so and sings a song: because I am finding fault with women? I
Oh why have you asked me to come in my bridal consider you as a pure jewel.
dress? The premise of this syllogism is such that the
Do you remember my beautiful figure as you womans position is contradictory, she has no way out,
she is guilty by definition, by the terms in which the was reserved for the blossoming of young love. The film
patriarchal logic is articulated. All that the cornered was very popular with the audience but aroused
Chandra can manage is a tentative suggestion which is controversy among the critics. While some critics
smothered by the power of the male discourse. Then praised the film for its daring subject matter and
her only outlet is crying, at which response the technical sophistication greater than the average
paternalistic husband calls her a pure jewel. The fact Sinhalese film, others condemned it for falsely
that the husband tries to organize the union of the two representing a nonexistent woman:
lovers in the event of his death could be seen as a Why does Nilupa commit adultery with Rohan?
mechanism for releasing unconscious feelings hitherto The film does not provide convincing reasons as
repressed. This official sanction and the possibility of its to why a woman who has a loving husband and a
realization coupled with her own internalized feudal delightful daughter would want to enter an illicit
notions of dutiful obedient wifeliness would have relationship. The film does not provide reasons
created too many contradictions for her to cope with. for her frustrations and displeasure with her
Because patriarchy structures female desire as its other, present life. Is she represented as a real middle-
which is to say as a negative, it is not possible to express class mother? She is always dressed and waiting
female desire within a field demarched in patriarchal for someone to appear. Hence she is more like
terms as in this film text. Female desire cannot be a film star ready to appear in a film rather than a
expressed in a way which subverts male power middle-class housewife.12
structures. So the only way out of the contradictory
This critic compares this film unfavorably with
situation is to kill the heroine and then deify her. The Satyajit Rays Churulatha in order to show the lack of
last image of Chandra on a cloud with the little girl realism of the Flouting Flower. Yet another critic at-
(symbol of virginity) seems to reinforce the male fantasy tempts to understand why the film was such a popular
of the virginal mother, the desexualized woman who su-:
therefore poses no threat to male sexual anxieties. This
film thus constructs woman as a sign which is circulated It is the surface appearance of Floating Flower
from feudal patriarchal father to feudal patriarchal which has attracted the audience. . . . New
husband, and finally as icon of ideal femininity which hair styles, fashion, pop songs, puppy love. . .
can only be realized in death through the death of this is why working women and middle-class
desire. Woman as desiring being is troublesome for the women go after the illusion presented by the
film text; the tension between wifely duty and sexual film. It is true that there is a question. But is it
desire cannot be made explicit. The only resolution for a sexual problem? In other words, Floating
the text lies in the death of the good wife, who in her Flower does not even give an inkling of the real
death preserves her virtue, as well as the power pr0b1em.l~
structures of the feudal patriarchal family. What the critics fail to understand is that after a
Floating Flower; Sister, Your Permission; A Bouquet woman has obtained what a given society might consider
for Indu: The first film made in 1976, and the other two all that she may desire, such as a good husband, home,
in 1979, represent contradictions within bourgeois child, servant, clothes, etc., there still might be more to
marriage in a manner which is different from The life. The film is interesting for the reason that it
Husband is the Wifes God. What is common to all three attempts to show a seemingly ideal marriage in a banal
films is the fact that the tension between duty and desire fashion. This narrative begins where a large number of
is made more explicit than in The Husband is the Wifes Sri Lankan films end, which is when girl meets boy and
God. In the latter film, filmic discourse is unable gets married to live happily ever after. The questions
consciously to express desire which violates the law of about whether there are women just like Nilupa and the
monogamy. But its unconscious expressions can be films lack of realism miss the point of the film. What is
discerned in the narrative structure. In these films, important is that the film provides a narrative of a wife
made respectively 12 and 15 years later, the position of who leaves her husband in order to have a romantic
women as sexually desiring beings is articulated outside affair for no apparent reason. The only reason which
the moralistic context of the night club. might be culturally tolerable would be, perhaps, extreme
brutality o n the part of the husband. Yet, the reasons
Floating Flower (1976) is the first Sri Lankan film are very much on the visual surface for the audience to
which represents adultery in a manner that makes it see but the male critics fail to do so because of their
seem visually pleasurable. The fact that the adulterous own views about femininity and marriage. Nilupa has a
wife is not punished by the narrative can be considered servant to do the work in the house and she has no
an advance on the previous moralistic resolutions. The financial need to work because her husband provides
extended formulaic sequence of the bored middle-class for her. All she does is dress up in gorgeous saris and
housewife/mother singing and dancing in the woods lounge around the house and garden. As the title of the
with her young lover constructs a romantic space and
film suggests she just floats like a flower. She is like a
time for adultery. Previously, romantic depiction of love
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Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
child-wife and mother who does not have to do anything The boy assures her that it is of no consequence. She
for herself. A quote from a Peggy Seager song, Mrs. refuses to marry him until she can avenge her fathers
Desai, on a militant Indian worker in Britain, death. The rich man in the village who killed her father
encapsulates very well what Nilupas life as a middle- offers work to Anura who swears to Sujatha that he will
class wife is like: help her to get even with the villain. The plot thickens
Born rich in the womb, as you say with a silver when the villains daughter Chitra becomes attracted to
spoon in the mouth. Anura. Chitra addresses her father as daddy even
Born female, learn early to work but never had though she speaks to him in Sinhalese, drives a sports
to labour. car and is westernized in both dress and behavior. She
Luxury life is a knife in the heart and mind, provides a contrast to Sujatha, the innocent village
Any day all day nothing to do but waste your girl. Anura has to accompany Chitra whenever she
time. pleases because he is her fathers employee. In an
The film text itself is only dimly aware of this prob- extended sequence representing a picnic, Chitra and
lem. The terms in which Nilupas sexual desire is three other women sing a song called We are Colombo
aroused outside marriage and then brought within its girls and dance for Anura. This sequence, seen from
regulation do not offer the bored housewife the possi- his point of view, is intercut with Sujatha watering plants
bility of understanding the limitations of her life, her at home, in order to contrast two different modes of
narrow containment within affluent domesticity. Due to femininity. The length of the sequence and its structure
the construction of the woman as a pleasurable image of pleasurable looking undercuts the criticism of the
clad in a variety of clothes, with all the leisure and westernized frivolous woman.
wealth the majority of Sri Lankan women can never Sujatha expresses her jealousy about Anura going
have, the film works seductively for women. The state out with Chitra.
of useless dependence is represented pleasurably and Sujatha: She is pretty and wealthy.
thus acts as a mechanism of containment for women to Anura: What I like about you are your good
aspire to the status of beautiful image. The real prob- qualities, but you have jealousy.
lem is both sexual and political, but because the film de-
fines female sexuality in terms of romantic love (singing Sujatha: When the one you love talks to another
in cars and dancing in beautiful surroundings), the pos- woman one does feel jealousy, that is legitimate.
sibility of articulating a feminine desire which cuts After which interchange the couple sing a song looking
across traditional definitions of femininity is foreclosed at each other.
by the film. In the sequence where the wife comes back The mandatory night-club sequence is introduced
to her husband from her lover, there is an insertion of a when Chitra orders Anura to accompany her to a dance.
fantasy sequence from the husbands point of view. He Anura refuses to dance while Chitra goes on to the
imagines killing the unfaithful wife. The viewer is star- dance floor and does a dance looking at Anura. At in-
tled. Is it real or is it fantasy? The next sequence tervals her dancing is frozen in a close-up and the image
assures the viewer that it is fantasy. The film thus given to the viewer to gaze on for the duration of a few
provides the audience with an imaginary gratification of seconds. This sequence lasts nearly three minutes and
its moralistic sentiments, after which the bad wife is after it Anura leaves the club in disgust. He goes to
accepted by the good husband and the family is Chitras house and by lifting a photograph of two chil-
restored. dren, a girl and a boy, accidentally finds the entrance to
(b) Girl-Meets-Boy Formula:
an underground space where a lot of money is hidden.
Chitra follows him there and in the shoot-out that en-
Beautil Girl (1975) sues, her father accidently shoots her and Anura shoots
The plot complication in this film depends on both her father. On his deathbed it is revealed that he is in
mistaken identity and a revenge situation. A rich boy, fact the father of Anura who had been given to relatives
Anura, has just returned from England and goes to his for adoption because his horoscope stated that he would
parents estate where he sees a beautiful girl walking kill his father; he is therefore an oedipal son. This rev-
down the road. He sings a song as he sees her walking. elation makes the attraction of Chitra to Anura an in-
This scene is constructed in terms of long shots with cestuous one. While the villain is breathing his last
close-ups of each of their faces smiling at the audience. Sujatha comes in and strangles him, thus relieving
The code of the eyeline match characteristic of Anura at the guilt of being a patricide. She kills him and
Hollywood cinema does not operate here. The pre- gloatingly says that she has now avenged the death of
credit sequence shows the murdering of a man whose her father. Anura dutifully calls the police who come
body is dumped at his house. The beautiful girl, and take Sujatha into custody. The last shot is of
Sujatha, is shown crying at the loss of her father. She Sujatha being taken away by two policemen. As they
swears to avenge his murder. Anura falls in love with walk down a long corridor she turns round and looks at
the poor girl who says I am poor and you are rich. the viewer and the shot is cut into a close-up. What
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does the look signify? The innocent beautiful girl in love millionaire and Nilanthi who is also there immediately
is now capable of murder. This possibility saves the falls in love with him not knowing that it is Gamini in
hero from the heinous crime of patricide predicted in disguise. Gamini outbids Nilanthi in order to raise the
the horoscope. The sons oedipal anxieties are thus price of the land and finally lets Nilanthi outbid him. As
given expression (for it was Anura who shot the father) a consequence of this deal she and her father are
and then laid on the woman while the son sides with the bankrupt. Nilanthi has a mental breakdown and attacks
law to establish order. Class differences are not her father for having brought her up to be so frivolous.
resolved by this narrative but it does provide a catharsis Yet another sub-plot develops around a villain who
for male oedipal anxieties. That expression is made wants to steal the money which Gamini has put in the
possible through the repression of female desire bank in Nilanthis name. His strategy is to kidnap the
represented by Sujathas determination to avenge her hysterical Nilanthi, put another woman who looks just
fathers death prior to gratifying her sexual desires. The like her in her place, marry Nilanthi and get her to sign
patricidal oedipal son can kill his father, inherit his her wealth over to him. The actress who plays Nilanthi
wealth and enter the Symbolic through the mediation (Malini Fonseka) also plays the role of the woman who
of the transgressive woman. The woman founders on is to replace her. This woman is called Lady Mungo
the law while the man accedes to the Law precisely at and works at a tavern selling illicit liquor where she be-
her expense. haves in a manner which is the very opposite of the gen-
The Hero is Always a Hero (1975) tle upper-class heroine stereotype. She is also different
The rich person in this film is a spoilt, beautiful girl, from Nilanthi in that her class position makes her a
Nilanthi, and the poor boy, Gamini, is handsome and tougher, more earthy representation of woman than her
strong. The two meet when the boy comes to the girls rich sister. Both roles are played in a highly exaggerated
house as a servant. The plot thickens because prior to melodramatic manner. The idiomatic rough language
this they have been together at university. The film is a she uses contrasts with both Nilanthis and that of the
variation of the film who is f i g , also made in the same gentle young daughter of the millionaire. Mungo is in-
year with the same stars. The servant reads the saying structed to kill Gamini but at the climactic moment she
of an ancient sage while the rich girl does a dance sides with Gamini and actively participates in defeating
around him in a sexy provocative manner. The maxims the villain. She removes the cartridges from the rifle so
are read out aloud by the hero: She must never ever be that when the villain attempts to fire he finds the gun
like a firebrand, She is a flower outside but a she-devil empty. The police come for the final round-up and
inside. The sages say that man descends from the Mungo hits two men with the butt of the gun and ag-
monkey but when I see you I feel that monkeys have gressively orders the villain to move over in the jeep and
descended from humans. Both her dialogue and give her room to sit. She then disappears from the story
gestures represent, in caricature, the heartless frivolity leaving the reformed Nilanthi with Gamini. There is an
of the upper-class woman. The father of the hero turns identical repeat of the scene of one father pleading with
out to be an old friend of Nilanthis father. When the the other for his daughter to be taken in marriage by the
girl and boy were young, the two fathers had decided others son, except that the roles are reversed now. The
that they would marry their children to each other when two fathers are reconciled thus symbolizing the populist
they grew up. So Gaminis father comes to the rich dreams of harmony between the rich and the poor.
mans house and asks that he give his daughter in Gamini says he loves Nilanthi whether she is bad or not.
marriage to his son. The rich man is outraged by the The very last sequence is a repeat of a previous se-
proposal, humiliates his poor friend and chases him out quence where the couple do a song and dance routine
of the house. Gamini decides to avenge his father. This affirming their love. This repetition is perhaps deter-
desire leads to a sub-plot involving a sad alcoholic mined by economic rather than aesthetic considerations.
millionaire whom Gamini saves from some crooks. As It is indeed fascinating that Lady Mungo, who
reward he offers his daughter to Gamini. Gamini appears only briefly in the narrative, is its strongest
refuses because the daughter and he love each other character. Strong not only in gesture and utterance, she
like brother and sister. The daughter is represented is an agent of the plot whose change of side helps in the
as a gentle rich girl. At one point in the narrative villains defeat. It is not fortuitous that she, who has
Gamini pretends to be drunk and pretends to rape her been shown selling illicit liquor, extracting payment
in order to shame her father out of his alcoholism. The from her male customers and verbally attacking men for
rape itself, in its violence and mode of representation, is their sexism (Men behave like bloody dogs when they
not unlike similar rape scenes in the Sri Lankan cinema. see women), is economically independent. (But no
The only difference is that Gamini provides a moral female is a match for a male hero; when Mungo is
justification for it. The father who sees the rape of his caught by Gamini he beats the truth out of her -
daughter reforms. He provides money for Gamini so onscreen). The only other woman who is economically
that he can take his revenge on Nilanthis father for his independent is the night-club performer who goes
class arrogance. Gamini appears at a land sale as a through a routine inside a cage, like an animal. She and
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Mungo both make a living by gratifying male desire, one shows the mother and Anupama wandering about to the
via visual pleasure and the other via alcohol. But the accompaniment of a song which is cut to a close-up of
working-class Mungo is able to preserve her dignity Asithas face with his eyes closed. The rape of
while the westernized performer cannot; caged in more Anupama by Asitha is a very rare Occurrence in the Sri
senses than one, the latter is totally consumed by the Lankan cinema because his act of sexual violence is not
specularity of her functions, while the role of Mungo coupled with class violence as in the majority of films
erupts into the narrative and leaves its mark on it - representing rape. What is violated in this instance are
partly because she and Nilanthi are played by the same the ties of kinship which made Asitha and Anupama the
actress. Doubles, twins and mistaken identities are the ideal couple. The fact that Asitha should have killed a
very stuff of melodrama, generating confusion and plot comrade caught precisely in the act of rape adds a
complications. It seems, however, that in doubling further dimension to his own act of rape. When his
women, more than plot is being complicated. fellow robber was raping the daughter of his wicked
Femininity as identity, as unitary concept, is fractured, uncle he could have prevented it without resorting to
with class as the crucial hinge of difference. the extreme violence of murder. To answer rape with
Previous Birth (1972) and Anupama (1978) are two murder signifies more than just the righteous
love stories about men and women of the upper class. indignation of a moral male towards an immoral one. It
What makes them different from the standard sexual suggests that the act aroused similar impulses in Asitha
and interpersonal problems is that they foreground which he can only repress with another violent act.
mother-son relationships within an oedipal economy. After the rape, Anupama meets the mother and
Anuparna (1978) is the story of a mother and son. tells her that she was raped by Asitha. The two women
The father is absent, dead before the story begins. The embrace each other and part. The mother watches the
opening scene is of the mother feeding her little son raid on the sons stronghold in the jungle. She sends a
Asitha while narrating their family history; how the message to the son: Tell him that a woman called
wealth of her father was wasted by her brother. The son Martha (the name suggests that she is a Catholic) has
declares that he will avenge this crime and points to the come to meet him. The son comes to her call and the
grandfathers dagger hanging on the wall, saying When mother shouts out his name and they embrace and sit
I am big I will kill the bad uncle. down in medium shot. As she embraces him, he asks
A cousin of the boys, Anupama, comes to live with
her to sing a song to him as she did when he was a little
boy, and he tells her that he still loves her. The mother
them. In terms of kinship Anupama is the ideal future tells the son that the way he has gone is bad and as the
wife for Asitha, and the mother expresses this hope son trustingly and lovingly sleeps on the mothers lap,
when she tells him: Son, you have a beautiful little like an infant, the mother takes her fathers dagger
cousin (nana) now. The narrative moves from child- which was shown at the beginning of the narrative and
hood to the adult lives of Anupama and Asitha. She stabs the son and then herself.
rejects Asitha in favor of his rival Sanje, and Asitha gets
involved with a gang of robbers intending to avenge his A low-angle shot of the mother with the phallic-
mother by robbing her wicked brother. The tension looking dagger raised against the sky renders the image
here is between kinship ties and those of romantic love. ambiguous; as in the message to the son quoted above
It is the impossibility of the ideal marriage determined she seems to have become less or more than a mother.
by traditional kinship norms which drives Asitha to his The energy with which she stabs in the name of the law
desperate unlawful activity. While robbing the house of (her son is a murderer and rapist) has sexual
Asithas uncle, one of his mates attempts to rape one of connotations and cannot be entirely accounted for in
his cousins. Asitha commands the robber to stop it and diegetic terms. There is a desire here which brings into
when he does not he shoots the rapist and goes into question the Law of the Father, which when
hiding. acknowledged has to be repressed by that very law. The
His rival Sanje becomes a police inspector and is put mother kills her son and herself with her fathers dagger.
on the job of capturing Asitha, who is now an outlaw. The dying Asitha meets Sanje and asks his forgive-
Anupama goes in search of Asitha. They meet in the ness for having raped Anupama. Sanjes reply under-
jungle; he fails to recognize her and rapes her. This cuts realistic expectations: I will accept your child. He
failure to recognize is an example of the generic assumes that Anupama will now be pregnant. This is yet
cinemas indifference to verisimilitude and how it another example of the fact that the generic cinema
constructs paradigmatic situations in which does not work within the matrix of realism. This Scene
contradictions are articulated. The rape sequence in is cut to a medium close-up of Anupama looking on as
close-up lasts nearly two minutes. After it h e tells her to the stronghold is blown up. The image freezes on this
proclaim to the world that Asitha the robber raped her. shot and the film ends with the transference of the ille-
She tells him that she is his Anupama. His scream of gitimate child to the legitimate pair, thus restoring the
anguish is cut to a shot of his mother roaming the order disrupted by Asithas social desire.
wilderness looking for him. A series of parallel cuts
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(c) Atypical Formula Films: works for him on one of his estates. Thus Master Bon-
nie is shown as one who exploits feudal class values and
A group of formula films have been classified as sexual values in a manner which is congruent with feu-
atypical because they introduce new material as subjects dal benevolence. Maggy who is totally contained
of the narratives. In terms of the formal convention within servile feudal ideology says For me your honor
used they are very much a part of the generic is more important than what I get. After this she
melodrama, but they differ from both the formula of tentatively inquires about another young girl, Nony,
marital life and the girl-meets-boy formula by the fact whom Master Bonnie is showing interest in, Master,
that these pat formulas are decentred by the will you d o the same to that girl. . .? He replies with
introduction of new ones. I have limited my analysis to Dont be angry. The last shot is of Maggys tear-
one of these films. stained face registering the acceptance of her position
Another Mans Flowers (I966) as a woman totally locked into feudal sexual and social
Sound. Master Bonnie: Look, there is a relations.
beautiful girl. The desire of man is the death of womn: Bonnie
Image. Two men looking at the beautiful girl, speaks to the musical troupes he has hired about his de-
Kamala, in medium-long shot walking down a sire. I want a woman. Without her I have no longing
field carrying a bundle of hay on her head. for the arts. I cant exist without loving. There is a girl I
This shot is followed by a series of shots which show love with a pure love but she doesnt love me. You
Kamala occupied in domestic work. She is thus shown must write a song for me about her (Kamala) sleeping in
as industrious. After this there is a shot of Master a cemetery and how I will go to England and bring a
Bonnie visiting her house and of her father ordering her nightingale to wake her up. What does this fantasy
to stay out of sight, thus signalling Bonnies reputation signify? Why does he fantasize that Kamala (who is
as a womanizer. shown to be an industrious woman) should be sleeping
in, of all places, a cemetery? And that he should be the
The conflicts in this film are generated by a series of one to wake her? That this bizarre sentiment should
oppositions which form parallel narratives that converge be articulated in a song is not strange given the function
towards the end. The articulation of the opposites is in of songs within the formula. It is in songs that hopes
terms of the desire for women of the main male and desires, which cannot be realized, are quite often
character, Bonnie, expressed both verbally and in terms expressed. The music expresses and contains the energy
of the controlling look which opens the film. The which the narrative is incapable of articulating. A clue
narrative is set in a village where feudal class relations to deciphering Bonnies morbid desire is to be found in
operate. Bonnie is the rich feudal landowner. The film the scene where he visits Kamalas house towards the
narrates a paradigm of class and sexual relationships end of the narrative, after having accepted the fact that
within feudal patriarchy. Women are central to this he will never get her. He has sanctioned her marriage
articulation. What I shall do with this narrative is not to Sirisena, his watcher, by offering Kamala his family
just go along with it but cut across it using heirlooms (presumably those of his mother). He says,
psychoanalytic concepts so as to ask questions to do After my mother died while I was a child, this (pointing
with the structure of male fantasy14within the narrative. to Kamala) is the first female face I saw. I have done
It is through this analytic strategy that I will examine the dirty things. I sacrificed a great love because I had no
positioning of the three main female characters in the love. Love is like godliness, Sirisena has it and so does
narrative through the narration of male desire, the Kamala. We must all offer praise to it like beggars. I
desire of Bonnie for women, and most particularly his ask your forgiveness. Here, Bonnie explicitly draws a
desire for the one woman he can never have, the good connection between his dead mother and the woman he
woman. Why does the narrative signify some women as loves with a pure love. Purity is defined as that which
good and others as bad? Who articulates this binary is asexual, and is directly opposed to the lust he feels for
grid, how, for whom and why, are some of the questions both Nony and Maggy, women he has seduced and
I will pose and attempt to answer. raped by using his position of power as a feudal
One of the bad women, Maggy, who lives with landowner. Why does Bonnie desire Kamala to be
Bonnie is first shown leaning intimately on him and asleep in a cemetery? Does she awaken in him his desire
sleeping while he drinks. In a subsequent sequence in for his dead mother? If so what does this do to the
the masters bedroom, which is dominated by the bed, woman he loves who is not his mother? It clearly desex-
she cries and pleads with him, because she is pregnant: ualizes her because she is contrasted with M a w and
Maggy: What will become of me? Nony who are sexually active and therefore defined as
Bonnie: I wont let you be lost because of me. I being bad. The maternal is also desexualized because
love you, Maggy, but you know that I cant a sexual mother would be profoundly problematic to pa-
marry you. triarchal definitions of gender identity which pivot on
Bonnie arranges a marriage for her with a man who the phallus and its material correlate, the penis, and the
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P K D . Seneviratne who had previously written the the performers as they gaze into each others eyes.
scripts of Xwulu village and GodsCountry. In Peries Under the influence of the nun, Sujatha goes
other work he collaborated with the script writer in or- through a change of heart and image. This is
der to come up with a structure that he wanted. In this represented in a sequence enacted in front of her
film he had greater constraints within which to work: dressing-table mirror. A medium shot of her seated
The pattern had already been set by the with her face directed downward is cut to one of her
scriptwriter, PKD. Seneviratne; at its simplest hand masking half of her face which registers a look of
terms, it was a contrast in white and grey - the dissatisfaction with what she sees,the bejewelled image
boy and the girl who had all the virtues and the of an upper-class woman. The camera dollies back and
other boy and girl, easy going, fun-loving, and fonvard to register her movements as she opens her
irresponsible. The central character was fingers to frame her eye between her thumb and four
Sujatha. The story was an examination of her fingers. The camera movements create a slow steady
gradual withdrawal from life as she knows it rhythm as she slowly and deliberately takes off her
among the wealthy upper ~1ass.l~ jewelry and elaborate hairdo. The shot scale varies from
The standard generic oppositions are there but with medium shot to extreme close-up. Her fiance registers
a difference. The idealized Sinhalese woman has for the her new image of unadorned simplicity with surprise and
most part been located in the village (Kurulu W a g e , displeasure. Sujatha remains in full control of the
The Changing Village) but this film adds an innovation situation while her parents attack her for deliberately
to this motif by representing such a woman within an trying to turn Cyril away from her. Just as Cyril moves
urban upper-middle class milieu. Sujatha, the only away from her life, another man, a medical student by
daughter of a rich family, is engaged to Cyril, a playboy. the name of Senaka, who has been watching her from
Though she speaks in Sinhalese she addresses her par- his room next-door, starts visiting her and expresses his
ents with the English words mummy and daddy appreciation of her new look.
which in the generic cinema often connotes badness. Senaka: A great change. One cant be simple if
Cyril and Sujatha have a mutual friend Saroja who is one does not have a progressive mind.
contrasted with Sujatha. The former is playful and sex- Sujathas mother: We have no intention of
ually promiscuous while the latter is more serious- making Sujatha into a nun.
minded.
Sujatha: Do you think I will become a nun?
The young people visit Sujathas fathers estate at
which the old watcher is humiliated by Sujathas rich Mother: You dont dress in a manner
friends. This becomes the turning-point for her disen- appropriate to the city.
chantment with the rich set. A Buddhist nun visits her Senaka: It is now that her beauty is revealed.
house and an exchange of ideas takes place between the The change is thus legitimized through the gaze of the
two women. This scene is constructed by a medium two ideal male observer despite the resistance of the
shot with both women seated looking in different direc- mother.
tions. This scene is cut to Saroja and Cyril in a car. Saroja
Sujatha: Did you become a nun because you is seen applying lipstick, thus drawing a contrast
were disillusioned? between the ideal simple woman and the westernized
Nun: No, it was not because of a bad woman. The parents who cannot understand the
disillusionment. change in their daughter have a confrontation with her:
Then each face is given in a close-up and back again to Mother: What has happened to you?
the original medium two shot. The shot-reverse-shot Sujatha: Nothing.
convention with its eye-line matches of the Hollywood Father: Do you intend to become a nun?
cinema does not operate here.
Sujatha: I have no such intention, at least for the
Cyril and Saroja have an affair and go to the movies time being.
to view a generic formula film where the lovers sing and
dance. This film which the viewer sees is thus signalled Mother: Any day in the future?
as being different. The lovers in this film do not sing Sujatha: Who can tell.
and dance as in the generic cinema. In fact, perhaps for Mother: Why doesnt Cyril come?
the very first time, the image of lovers, lying in bed (with Sujatha: Yes, thats true. He hasnt come here
sheets covering them discreetly) and looking at each in a long time.
other is shown. This was the nearest that a Sri Lankan
film had then (1%) come to actually representing Father: Tell us why he hasnt come.
copulation. This scene of illicit premarital sexuality is Sujatha: While the nun comes here he said he
represented in a non-moralistic manner which is will not be coming.
pleasurable mainly because of the energy in the looks of Father: Is he afraid of the nun?
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Mother: What a stupid thing to say. We will go traditional goodness which is reinforced through her
to meet -1. association with the Buddhist nun, who is instrumental
Sujatha: Why should you go after him? in her conversion. Deviance in a daughter can be
Father: Why cant you be the way he wants you accepted by the parents and is idealized by the narrative
to be? in so far as it sustains traditional values. She is not a
prodigal daughter like Saroja who can only find peace
Sujatha: Let him come if he wants to. by renouncing the secular life. The goodbad opposition
What emerges clearly from this dialogue is that in is made considerably more complex but the image of
the parents eyes no consideration at all (not even the idealized femininity is rewarded through the appearance
religion that they, as well as their daughter, profess) of the ideal man, which is still the greatest benefit a
competes in importance with their daughters desirable g o d heroine can desire.
marriage; her suitors wishes must be regarded as the
final determinant of her behavior. Dharmasena Pathiraja
Cyril impregnates Saroja and leaves her for a rich The Wasps are Here (1978) is a much more complex
woman. He does, however, visit her, gives her money film than the above because its narrative meshes specific
and says, You have all you need, dont you?, and she economic and class relations with sexual relations in a
replies, I dont want anything. I only want to see you. way which signifies their mutual interdependence. It is
He says that he cant be with her for the delivery and one of the few Sri Lankan films to articulate the social
advises her to give the child away if someone wants it. implications of the personal. The films narrative is set
The abject dependence of the woman in love is in a remote fishing village. The wasps referred to in the
represented in this scene where even in a situation of title are a group of young men: Victor and his friends
such hopelessness all she can think of is the need to be from the city. Victor is the son of a former village fsh
with her lover. Senaka comes to her help when 1- merchant who, because of his fathers wealth and social
abandons her and leaves for England with his rich lover. mobility, has grown up in the city. He comes back to his
The child dies. What makes this narrative opposition of fathers village to cash in on the fish trade, now
the good girl and the bad girl different from the generic controlled by Anthony, who has risen from the ranks of
formula is Sujathas feelings for Saroja even after she the fishermen to become a fish merchant. His power in
has violated their friendship by having an affair with the village is both economic and sexual because it is told
Cyril. She tells her parents, Whatever happens I am that he has women and children on practically every
fond of Saroja. Their meeting is arranged by Senaka island in the vicinity. With Victors arrival, there
and the two women embrace each other in medium shot develops a conflict between the feudal patriarchal
as Sujatha says, Sara, tenderly. exploiter (Anthony) and the capitalist patriarchal
Saroja: I have done a lot of wrong. exploiter (Victor). The economic conflict is
complicated by the introduction of a sexual conflict,
Sujatha: No Sara. when Victor becomes attracted to a village girl, Helen,
Saroja: Is it a nuisance my being here? who is engaged to a local fisherman, Cyril. Into this
Sujatha: No, if you did not come here I would conflict, which is both personal and social, the whole
have had no rest. village is drawn until there is a violent denouement.
The same actresses, h u l a Karunatilleke and Punya As the young city men arrive in their jeep a fisher-
Heendeniya, played similar roles in Other MensFlowers man says, The wasps are here, creating the expecta-
but in that film there was no point of contact between tion that they will seek out the flowers. In fact when
the good and the bad woman. Here they meet and Victor meets Helen he tells her that when wasps see
through the meeting Saroja becomes a Buddhist nun. flowers they come to them for honey. Thus the tradi-
At first she watches Sujatha humming and serenely tional metaphor of woman as flower is articulated. But
arranging flowers and worshipping the Buddha. This is the way in which the mutual attraction of Helen and
cut to a close shot of Sarojas hand with flowers held in a Victor is represented within a matrix of class and power
gesture of offering and is cut to a shot of her looking at relations makes this potentially clichked motif - the se-
the Buddha. This is one of the earliest films to duction of a beautiful, young, innocent village girl by a
introduce the theme of renunciation of life as a rich man - different from similar ones in the generic
narrative resolution for emotionalhexual trauma. The cinema.
representation of the ideal man (who is originally from a Helen is shown catching fish and drying it when
village) and the ideal woman is done in terms of her Victor approaches her and tells her, I love you, I will
strong allegiance to simplicity. The very rare scene of a take you away (to the city). Though he seduces her by
daughter questioning parental authority is articulated in making false claims, their mutual attraction is made
terms of the daughters new Buddhist values which cut appealing. Her desire for him is both sexual and social,
across her parents class interests. What is represented while his is purely sexual.
as appealing and good in the upper-class daughter is her In the first major confrontation between Anthony
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Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
and Victor, the former accuses the latter of exploiting is to be established in the village. Given the partiality of
Helen: I do not peck and leave like others. The lan- the police to Victor, their arrival is viewed equivocally
guage used is determined by patriarchal hierarchies and by Costa, when he says, Now you will have law and or-
feudal values which are contrasted with the more imper- der in the village. The abandoning of Helen, however,
sonal money power represented by Victor. Though An- is a crime which does not come within the law and order
thony has many women he says he supports them all ac- represented in the film, where the last sequence is the
cording to the feudal code of responsibility, whereas same as the one on which the credits appeared at the
Victor who is removed from feudal ties uses and then beginning of the film: a long shot of the beach with fsh-
discards Helen. She is estranged from her fiance Cynl ermen working, an old woman walking with a child.
because of her desire for Victor. The fshermen see this Then there is a long shot of Helen looking at the ocean.
as a double threat to their position, for Victor not only The image is accompanied by a song sung by male and
attempts to obtain the monopoly of the f s h trade but is female voices which has a reiterated refrain,
also taking away one of their women. In a Scene where Udumbara sheds tears, a reference to a legendary
Helen chops wood for cooking, four fshermen, includ- female. The scale of the shot and the mythical
ing Cyril, surround her and threaten to punish her for reference distance the viewer from the personal tragedy
associating with Victor. The mise-en-scene of the se- of Helen and works as a comment on the position of a
quence represents the position of women vis-a-vis the woman within a specific social, economic and sexual
male power structure within the feudal community. As conjuncture. The tears are not shown in close-up as in
Helen cuts wood, Cynl and three other men come to- many generic films. Rather they are spoken of by the
wards her menacingly in medium long shot and surround song while we are given only a long shot of the female
her while Cyril grabs her by the hand. Then a high- victim. The individual tragedy has been precisely
angle shot shows all from above. Helen resists Cyrils located and causes for its existence are represented. I
violence, at which point Anthony grabs and pushes her disagree, therefore, with those reviewers who criticized
to the ground. The camera pans between the four men. Pathiraja for representing yet another female victim.
When Helen falls on the ground there is a low-angle In Bumbum Avith (The Wasps are Here) the
shot from her point of view of the men looming threat- fshermans daughter is passive and stony-faced,
eningly over her, commanding her to regulate her desire not even showing a glimmering of anger or
in a manner consonant with feudal norms. This Scene is resentment at being seduced and finally
cut to Victor visiting Helens house at night and asking abandoned by the city slicker.2O
her parents to see her. She takes control of the situa-
tion and tells him that she will meet him. When they It seems to me that by the structure of the last shot
meet at a derelict house she tells him what has hap- and what has gone before it Pathiraja explores the con-
pened to her. The two male sexual rivals fight the next tradictions of the position of woman, and if he cannot or
day and the defeated Cynl commits suicide by drowning. does not provide a positive heroine then that too is
When his body is washed ashore there is an imaginary part of the contradiction which he examines. I am re-
sequence from Helens point of view of her and Cyril minded of how Brecht concludes his play, The Good
rowing a boat to the accompaniment of music. Then a Woman of Szechuan, without the contradictions of the
series of medium shots of Cyril, herself and Victor are plot being resolved. Brecht adds that the conflicts artic-
shown to the accompaniment of a song which is then cut ulated in the theater have to be resolved outside it.
to Cyrils dead body. The marine police come to the Conclusion to Part 1
village which does not yet have a police station. The
police inspector sits and talks with Victor, thus respect- In my textual analysis of a small sample of films I
ing his class position. Helen and Victor meet again at have sought to demonstrate that femininity, contrary
the derelict house and she asks him, Truly, young mas- to the dictionary definition of it as an essence or natural
ter, you are going to take me away arent you? Yes, quality (i.e., feminine quality, female nature, woman-
some day, is his reply. ishness, S O D ) is in fact a set of traits that the cinema,
along with other signifying practices, actively produces.
The conflict reaches a climax when Victors servant This means that the cinema does not simply reflect the
kills Anthony while he sleeps and is in turn killed by the current definitions, more importantly it actively pro-
other fisherman. Victor prepares to leave for the city duces the feminine through the seductive codes avail-
when Helen, who is now pregnant, comes to him and able to it as a medium. I have also tried to show that
asks him, How about me? He silently turns away from this Droduction oDerates in both a conscious and uncon-
her. sciob sense. Beiause gender identity, what a given cul-
In the last sequence but one, Costa, one of Victors ture considers masculine and feminine, is largely
city friends who accuses Victor of being the cause of all lived and transmitted unconsciously, it is important to
the trouble, boards a bus to Colombo. As he waits for it remember that femininity is not simply a patriarchal
to leave we are shown the arrival of a police van and the plot. Both as a naive spectator of our cinema when I
erection of a sign post for the new police station which was just a little girl and now as a more critical spectator I
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have felt the lure of this cinema, its invitation to be a represented both physically and emotionally. The rich
certain kind of woman. It was with some alarm that I girl stands firmly by the poor girl when she is taunted for
registered the kinetic effect it had on me when watching being a vegetable sellers daughter. But halfway
several films a day over a period of weeks. I found my- through the film she leaves the narrative after having
self moving and regulating my gaze in the manner of the articulated strong feelings against the traditional views
good girls of the Sri Lankan cinema, all this no doubt about marriage and obedience to elders to which the
was happening at an unconscious level. So the moral is poor girl is about to succumb. There is here no clear
clear to me. The pleasure of seeing and hearing are in- narrative resolution of the friendship between women
vested with highly sexualized energy by the Sri Lankan of different classes. In Dancing Girl Leela, the unloved
cinema. The task for feminists is not to denounce the wife, shows all the harshness of an upper-class woman
pleasurable but to try to call for, work for, new kinds of to her servant woman but her relationship with the
pleasures that are not oppressive. Some developments dancing girl-turned-nurse is represented tenderly. The
in western feminist cinema have demonstrated only too populist resolution of the union of true love beyond
well that puritanical feminist paranoia does not go well class is achieved through the melodramatic death of the
with cinema. We do not need to repeat this. We must unloved wife. In Golden Robes, a non-moralistic
rather try to generate new meanings and new pleasures relationship is developed between Sara and Suji, where
such as are only sporadically glimpsed in the history of the good-bad opposition is made problematic
our national cinema. through Sujis love for the immoral Sara. However,
Finally, there is a continuing sub-theme in the Sri the narrative is resolved through their parting; Sara
Lankan cinema in its representation of the relationships renounces the world and its desires while Suji finds
between women. This could provide an alternative to happiness in the arms of the perfect Sinhalese man.
the oedipalizing of desire and its violent consequences 2. The mother-daughter relationship is shown in
- structures and processes that future work can draw both its repressive guise and in its more tender erotic
on. Within the overall category of relationships dimension for the daughter. The repressive mother
between women three subcategories stand out: quite often works as the spokesperson of class, caste
1. Friendship between women (within or outside class and religious discourses and forbids her daughter to
divisions); desire outside such constraints (Village Lass, Gads
Counhy, Broken Promise). But in films such as Coming
2. The relationship between mothers and daughters; ofAge, Girls and Susi, the daughters relationship to the
3. The female figure who resists the power relations to nurturing erotic aspects of the maternal provide
which the main female character submits. pleasure.
1. In Bouquet for Indu the relationship between 3. The motif of a younger sister or friend
Indu and Nisa contains elements which are within patri- protesting the oppressive norms to which the elder
archal definitions as well as elements which resist and sister or friend has to submit occurs in the following
playfully ignore its demands. In several scenes the audi- films: Lasanda, A Lady in Spring, Girls and Opening
ence is made aware of Indus husband as voyeur, the Flowers. Such sentiments of resistance to traditional
outsider in a scene of female pleasure. The element of values which regulate desire are important in a context
defiance becomes explicit when he asks his wife to come where feudal virtues of unconditional obedience to
to him and she refuses, preferring to stay with her ones elders are valorized. That these voices are heard
friend. but do not determine the course of the narratives
In Ill-fated Lass, Dancing Girl, Girls, Opening indicates the ideological nature of the narratives in
Flowers, Golden Robes, there is a representation of the reinforcing feudal ideology vis-a-vis women.
relationship between women of different classes. In Ill- It seems possible that a radical rethinking of these
fated Lass and Opening Flowers the friendship between subnarratives and articulation in terms of cinematic
women cuts across class barriers and provides the codes, especially that of the look, may lead to the
satisfaction of the populist myth of sisterly love production of narratives with a different economy of
transcending class, but unlike in the myth of the triumph desire for both men and women. This possibility has
of heterosexual love over class barriers, in these two implications for conventional notions of realism. A
narratives, the poor woman bears the consequences of comparison of the sociological data contained in
the happy narrative resolution for the heroine. In the Chapter Two of the authors dissertation - Positions of
case of Ill-fated Lass, the working class woman offers to Women in the Sn Lankan Cinema, 1947-197921-
be tied up so that Namali can escape with her true love. pertaining to Sri Lankan women with the textual
In Opening Flowers, the rich sister boards a plane to go analysis of the generic cinema shows no obvious
to England for higher studies while her poor sister is relationship between the lives of contemporary women
offered the prospect of a lucrative marriage by her and the representation of the category women in the
former rapist who has had a change of heart. In Girls, Sri Lankan cinema. It is this apparent lack of
the friendship between the rich and poor girls is relationship which has made some critics write of the
71University Press
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need for a more realistic representation of women, as developed a surrealist mode of narration to convey
well as of the working masses of the country. This distraught, hallucinatory states of mind which is most
argument is conceptualized more in terms of narrative evident in Thunveni Yarnaya (The Third Hour) and, to a
signifieds rather than in t e r n of signifiers. What is lesser extent, in Hansavilak (Swan Lake). The former,
demanded is that the national cinema become truly an unabashedly Freudian classic oedipal narrative, is
national by reflecting the socioeconomic realities which dramatized via a dense surrealist association of bizarre
determine life today, that it substitute reality for fantasy. images. There is a curious charm to this tale of the
Given the populist myth which informs the Sri Lankan anxieties and wish-fulfillments of a frail, bespectacled
generic cinema, this discourse which asks for greater oedipal son set in an upper-class Sinhala-Victorian
realism has played a progressive role in creating a milieu. The charm derives in part from the morbid
critical climate favorable to the reception of a cinema humor (so rare in our cinema) of the encounter
which breaks with the generic-formula. But the between the frail oedipal son and the full-blown male
limitations of conceptualizing in terms of the notion of stud who is left howling in terror at the others sudden
realism are evident in the reviews of the new Sri Lankan intense aggression. Needless to say, the women, both
cinema, which are for the most part based on the mother and wife, are but appendages to the oedipal
assumption that the characters and the narratives must mans tremulous yet obsessive desires. The wife has
represent recognizable people and situations, and must completely surrendered to the role of a being who
create images which are identifiable. This rhetoric desires to be desired. A word about the recreation of
poses problems for filmmakers who work not just to period milieu in this work - it never functions as a
reflect what is already there but to make new definitions nostalgia for a past gracious beauty; rather the rnise-en-
of the categories woman, man, work, pleasure, scene creates the sense of a stifling space, partly through
desire, politics, and so on. D. Pathirajas 1981 film the cinematography and partly through the surrealist
Old Soldier suggests, too, that now the discourse on a editing techniques. I shall return to this point when
realistic cinema can be shifted because its opposite is discussing Sumithra Peries work.
not necessarily fantasy or myth in the tradition of the Vasantha Obeyesekeres work in complicating the
generic cinema. This film, centering on three characters sound track so that a montage between image and
- an old soldier, a prostitute and a pimp - who discuss sound becomes possible is an unprecedented formal
various topics in a deserted business district of move in the Sinhala cinema. The importance of such
Colombo, while the nation is celebrating Independence formal innovations is that they enable a more complex
Day with great show of power and splendor in the set of perceptions and meanings. When the image says
nearby esplanade, suggests that filmic signifieds have no one thing and the sound another, then the viewer must
necessary identity with the social and that films actively engage in responding to such contradictions and
articulation of spacehime, character or agents and generate hisher own meanings. When the subject of
situations can produce new meanings hitherto such formal innovations is as iconoclastic as the mecha-
unthought of or unperceived. nisms used, then we have something new in our national
PART TWO cinema.
Sumithra Peries cinema from its inception has been
Food for Hunger marked by a certain aestheticism characteristic of Euro-
Stray dogs should be tiedn up or they must be pean art cinema. It is concerned with well-balanced
shot (Swarna Mallawarachchi in Dadayarna, composition and framing - fluid camera movements
The Hunt). that map out relationships visually, the gentle recreation
The three major auteurdirectors of the 198Os, of a certain milieu, a period look. I shall briefly com-
Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, Vasantha Obeyesekere and ment on the implications of these formal characteristics
Sumithra Peries, have enriched our national cinema by by examining two of her films which share them,
widening its scope both thematically and formally. In Gehenu Larnai (Girls) and G a n g Addara (By the
their recent films a cinematic sophistication and daring Riverside). Both deal with love affairs that cut across
are at work, making considerable demands on the audi- class barriers. Thematically, however, they represent
ence by the development of new cinematic idioms and widely opposed views of the girl-child within the
new modes of storytelling - hence of new meanings. I traditional Sinhala family. The main conflict is
shall focus on one factor they all share, the casting of generated by the opposition of personal desire and the
the actress Swarna Mallawarachchi in leading roles, demands of obedience to parental will in the context of
while also briefly discussing some of the distinctive fea- love and marriage. In Gehenu Larnai a young girl from
tures in their work. a poor family falls in love with a rich young cousin. But
as a dutiful daughter who obeys her elders she
To take the aspect of formal innovation first, the renounces him so that he can have a brighter and better
director who does the most complex work with image future via a lucrative marriage. The female star of
and editing is Dharmasiri Bandaranayake. He has Gehenu Lamai, Vasanti Chaturani, also plays the role of
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a rich girl who falls in love with a poor cousin in Ganga nostalgia which may undermine the critical edge of the
Addara. The crucial difference between the two films filmS.
lies in the fact that the latter film unequivocally exposes It has been said that Dharmasena Pathirajas two
the violence within the family. It in fact shows how the last films were ahead of their times, and that if they
family drives the daughter insane by demanding that she were to be re-released today they would resonate in a
suppress and repress her desire for a lover of her own way in which they did not in the early 1980s. In Soldadu
choice. Unnahe (Old Soldier) and Para Dige (Along the Road)
The brutality of familial relationships, determined there is a generic shift from family melodrama as the
by the greed for financial gain, is systematically exposed dominant mode of narrative cinema. In the former film,
by the narrative strategy of introducing a young psychia- centered o n social outcasts, there is no family at all,
trist who takes on the role of finding out why the girl while in the latter the formation of the couple as the
went mad. Through this investigatory structure the par- basis of the family unit is profoundly problematic. It
ents stand condemned. Because Vasanti Chaturani would be highly desirable for these films to be shown in
plays this role, she brings t o it the traditional values of some form of retrospective of the Sri Lankan New
gentle femininity which had accrued to her through her Wave, so that their achievements and failures could be
previous roles. Precisely because of this the tragic end- publicly debated from the perspective of a decade later.
ing, her suicide by jumping into the river, becomes sur- T h e ideas that the country could be in a state of war, its
prisingly horrific. W e expect her to behave differently, sovereignty threatened, now familiar, seemed
with more resignation. The casting as the young psychi- unthinkable (to everyone except Pathiraja) at the time;
atrist of Vijaya Kumaranatunga, then the leading star of and the exposure of the terrible banality of marriage has
the Sinhala cinema, also encourages viewers to expect a hardly even been attempted by any other director. It is
happy ending via the union of doctor and patient - it is significant that Pathiraja has made n o films since these
clear that his concern for her exceeds his professional two in the early 1980s. Once hailed as a major talent, he
obligations. T h e girl did survive the loss of her true now makes rather uninspired telemovies.
love; we see her pregnant and reasonably content with In contrast, Bandaranayake, Obeyesekere and
her suitably rich husband. She only cracks up o n the Peries have worked or tried to rework or rewire the
appearance of a white woman and child out of the blue, dominant popular genre of the family melodrama rather
with a paternity suit against her husband. But instead of than renounce it categorically as Pathiraja, did at the
the generically-desired happy ending of the union of the cost of his career. In their rewriting of the genre these
two stars, our heroine dreamily walks or floats into the three auteurs have expanded its formal and thematic
river, the site of her past bliss, and dies by drowning. possibilities. And a highly significant aspect of some of
This act jars with the soft period aura of the films visual their major films has been the work of Swarna
style. O n e wonders whether a more harsh and abrasive Mallawarachchi, returning to the Sinhala cinema after a
look would have been better. T h e loving recreation of a long overseas absence.
past has a kind of nostalgic effect which seems to be half I had no desire to be a film star, even in those days.
in love with the very world that destroys life in order to Besides, I did not have the physical attributes necessary
maintain itself. to be a star. In fact, I am glad that I have not become a
The experience of madness is represented in two s t a r . a In these words of Swarna Mallawarachchi, in
ways, one through the star, who is completely withdrawn the course of an interview with Sinesith, can be read a
and affectless in body and eyes, and the other through desire for something different in our national cinema
another asylum inmate who expresses it in a more vio- which is also illustrated by her estimation that o n e of the
lent manner. Shots of both women are intercut with im- great strokes of good fortune in her life was being
ages of a masked exorcist who is performing an exorcism chosen t o play in Srrrhsamudura (Seven Seas), a
ritual in the vicinity of the mental hospital. T h e manner relatively low-budget independent film directed by the
in which it is done is visually pleasing (rather than academic Siri Gunasingha which aspired (in 1%7) to
shocking) in the manner of shows put o n to entertain depart from the formulas of the generic cinema. She
tourists. If the experience of madness, its intense physi- said that she identified with the desire of the director
cal and mental pain, was conceived in a visual style able and a group of others to create a new kind of Sinhala
to represent its horror, the film might have had a cinema; she wanted to grow with this cinema. It is ironic
stronger impact. Nevertheless, in its exposure of the t o note that her favorite actress was Punya Heendeniya
family as an oppressive and cruel force, the film is im- and that her ideas about acting were influenced by this
portant for our cinema, which is so relentlessly family- actress, who more than any other made the image of the
centered. However, when o n e compares Ganga Addara Good Sinhala Girl a most enchanting ideal. Ironic
with the work of Bandaranayake or even that of Lester because Mallawarachchi has appropriated the low-
Peries in Nidhanaya (The Treasure), o n e sees the dif- keyed realism which she found valuable in Heendeniyas
ference between period films that are t o some extent in performance, in order t o create a type of femininity that
the nostalgic mode and those that do not succumb to a makes the simple opposition of the Good GirlBad Girl
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Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
an untenable myth. There have been appealing Bad her playing of the widowed peasant woman in Sagara
Girls in our cinema, notably in Lester Peries Ran Salu Juluyu. H e r skill in incarnating a peasant woman
(Golden Robes) in which h u l a Karunatilleke enlists without any of the traits of the Simple Village Beauty is
considerable sympathy even while playing alongside quite remarkable. T h e romanticism of the stereotype
Heendeniyas admirable Good Girl. But because of the cannot sunive in the presence of this actress who
presence of the Good Girl, the o n e designated as Bad expresses her desires and her rage with such directness
had to pay for her misdeeds. It was to Peries credit that and force. For Sumithra Peries this film is an important
the Bad Girl was no simple foil to the good, as she departure, as she has left behind the tender beauties of
invariably is in the generic cinema. the Good Sinhala Girl and has focused instead on the
Swarna Mallawarachchi seems to me to take up this life of a woman striving to live with her young son in an
strand in our cinematic history and develop it in another extremely harsh social and physical (Dry Zone)
register. It is difficult to forget the fresh energy, environment. T h e Mallawarachchi character can be
sensuality and vigor of h u l a Karunatilleke in crudely categorized as a shrew, over-quick to take
Bakmnhadeege (April Showers), Parasathumal offence, yet it seems better for our cinema to see
(Another Mans Flowers) and Ransalu (Golden Robes). women assert themselves rather than moan and groan
To all these qualities Mallawarachchi, in her recent to all eternity.
films, has added others so that we now have a more T h e two most forceful roles of Mallawarachchis
complex representation of the contradictory demands career to date seem to me to be those in the two
and passions that inform contemporary ideas of Obeyesekere films Dadnyama and Kadnpnthaku Chnya.
femininity. If some of us were tired of the procession of T h e roles are similar but the latter film above all
Good Mothers endlessly lamenting and Good Wives indicates the seriousness of Mallawarachchis
who were perfect doormats, then Mallawarachchi has commitment to acting as profession. In this film she
given us woman as a formidable force. begins as an appealing schoolgirl who then lives through
Women as Force, not Femme Fatale rape by her brother-in-law and arranged marriage to
middle age and a pragmatism which holds wealth and
In Bandaranayakes Hansavilak (Swan Lake), comfort as supreme good. H e r eventual killing of the
Obeyesekeres Dadayama (The Hunt) and rapist by throwing acid in his face is a profoundly
Kadapathaka Chaya (Image in a Mirror) and Peries ambivalent act of vengeance, but the film moves beyond
Sagam Jalaya (The Waters of the Ocean), the main this climactic moment to show her living in great
focus is o n the fate of the woman played by Swarna affluence but complete alienation from her family.
Mallawarachchi. As all these films involve the family, Mallawarachchi portrays this unappealing character
they work within a terrain familiar to the Sinhala movie- without flinching.
goer, but where they depart from traditional expecta- I n this film more than in any other Swarna
tions is in the way in which they conceive the female Mallawarachchi seems to figure as a particular
leading role. In Hansavilak a middle-class woman en- incarnation of the fatal woman, the woman fated to
gages in an extramarital affair with a man who also has a destroy man. In the history of western representation
family. The role of Miranda played by Mallawarachchi the myth of the femme fatale is of Woman as a
engages our sympathy, and the film involves us in the destructive force, using sexuality as a lure. But
complexities which follow when desire and what is sanc- Kadapathnka Chnya demystifies this myth; this woman
tioned by law and tradition d o not coincide. The film was not fated to destroy this man, but rather specific
does not encourage simple moral condemnation of such power relationships, familial and social, have
illicit desires but rather explores the difficult conse- transformed an innocent schoolgirl into an avenger, a
quences of the activation of such feelings. It is perhaps destroyer. It is noteworthy, too, that the film moves
one of the first adult films of our cinema, so much of beyond the period of the womans sexual appeal and
which falls into the category of safe family entertain- shows her in middle-age, rich, disenchanted and isolated
ment. T h e surrealist techniques deployed by Ban- from her now grown-up children.
daranayake help to represent the complex emotions
generated by such situations. That a woman with a de- In Dadayama, too, we see the transformation of the
cent husband and a young daughter could fall in love innocent village girl, falling in love with a rich man with
with another man and risk a great deal for the affair, be- a red sports car, into a woman demanding her rights
comes a credible and forceful experience such as an from the man who has violated her. This transformation
earlier film, Duhulu Malak (Floating Flower), with a is marked visually through the image. T h e section
similar theme could not quite achieve. The superiority dealing with the youthful love affair is marked by a ro-
of Hansavilak is due both t o its direction and to the re- mantic color coding and has a generic feel to it, while in
alism and poignant dignity that Mallawarachchi brings the second half of the film, the hunting of the seducer
to the role of Miranda. by the seduced, the film shifts into a harsher register,
both of sound and image. T h e girl transformed into an
There is a similar dignity, in a different register, in avenging woman is o n e of the most powerful figures in
I4
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Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
the Sinhala cinema, and her final gesture of attacking New South Wales, 1981, Sydney.
her lover with a huge pole while he tries to run her 4. Behroze Ghandy and Paul Willeman, Dossier on Indian Cin-
down in his red sports car is an unparalleled moment in ema, BFI Dossier, No. 5. 1980.
our screen history, for though she is run over repeat- 5. Ibid., p. 5.
edly, what also reverberates is the ferocity with which 6. Shortw @ford English Dictionq, 1978.
she has hunted him down. Even in such a situation of 7. Ghandy and Willeman, p. 28.
unequal power, the womans assertion of right is only 8. Ibid., p. 29.
beaten down, not quite silenced, by brute force. 9. Ibid., p. 28.
After-taste, After-image 10. SOED.
11. Ghandy and Willeman, p. 25.
Western feminist writing o n the cinema began in the
early 1970s with an expression of a desire for strong fe- 12. Kumudu Kusum Kumara, Sithiidl, No. 4. 1976.
male characters in film, women who were not heroines 13. K.W.Perera, Cinernaniuup, 1976.
but heroes; figures able to determine a course of action, 14. Fantasy - Imaginary scene in which the subject is a protag-
alter a particular narrative trajectory. In response, a onist representing the fulfillment of a wish (in the last analysis, an un-
conscious wish) in a manner that is distorted to a greater or lesser ex-
complex body of film has been produced in the last two tent by defensive processes. Fantasy has a number of different modes:
decades by women in the West. In the Sinhala cinema, conscious fantasy or daydreams, unconscious fantasies. . . . The
too, we now have the figure of a woman who makes LMguage of PsyclwanalysiF, Iaplanche and Pontalis, p.314.
things happen in the sense of acting (doing) rather than 15. Ranjini and Gananath Obe esekere, Comic Ritual Dramas in
simply suffering. This is a big shift in our cinema. Even Sri Ianka, The Lhama Review, dol. 20, No. 2, March 1976.
when the womans initiatives to transform an oppressive 16. Ibid.
situation end in failure, what remains in the memory 17. The structure of voyeurism in the cinema is one of the main
mechanisms of producing sexual difference. Fetichism is found
from this small body of work is the sense of a will to re- mostly in males, rare in females, voyeurs, seemingly all males.
sist and change existing forms of terror and oppression. 2
Sexual deviations, ncyclopedia Bntannica (Macropedia) Vol.
16, (Chicago 1974), . 607-608, cited by S. Heath in Difference,
That her efforts often fail is a measure of the tough re-
alism of these films that refuse facile resolutions in mar- 7l
Screen, (Autumn, 19 ), p. 85.
riage, which o n e of the pervasive myths of our cinema 18. Masochism, as a drive has sadism as its pair. Initially it is a
drive the infant experiences in its attempt to master itself. Later it is
has made the great harmonizer of social conflict. To split between people, the active becoming large male and the
this viewer, the after-image of the work of Swarna P
passive component female, hence the designation o masochism as a
ically female condition. See 7he Four Fundwnental Conctps of
Mallawarachchi is a desire for the further widening of ghowaaiysk, p. 192 which questions feminine masochism as a
the range of what is possible and desirable for woman in masculine fantasy.
our national cinema. 19. Philip Cooray, TheLoneIyArrisr, (Colombo, 1970), p. 40.
Notes 20. Ananda Jayaweera, Cinematic Images of Women, Lank0
Guardian, (March, 1979).
1 . Adrian Martin, No flowers for the cinephile: The fates of cul-
tural popullsm 1960-1977, Paul Foss (ed.),Island in the Srream, 21. See fn.3 for complete reference.
m y t h ofplace in Aurralian Culture,(Pluto Press, 1988), p. 137. 22. The word for marriage in Sinhala Bandinawa also means to
2. John Raus, The Western myth: Ride Lonesome and Guns in tie
the afternoon, SUFG Bulletin, Term 1. (1970), p. 44. 23. Sinesith, Nos. 14/15, 1989.
3. Ialeen Jayamanne, preface to unpublished Ph.D. thesis on Po-
sitions of Women in the SnLMkan Cinema 1947-1979,University of
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