Sri Lanka barely registers on the international film stage. Having seen my share of sub-Bollywood films (and trust me that’s not a good thing) from the country, it’s a good sign to see an artistic statement coming from my land of birth (and the first Sri Lankan film to play at the festival). The film was also successful at Cannes, winning the Best First Film Prize (Un Certain Regard) in 2005.

The story is set around the Sri Lankan Civil War, a conflict New Zealanders generally only hear about if there’s a Black Caps tour. The film follows a number of characters whose lives casually intersect through their daily lives of quickies, petty rivalries, “work” and “school”. Jayasundara has approached this conflict with the eye of Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó and with characters from Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang. In other words, a highly stylised and alienating piece of work, which plays on little moments with big implications. This results in a slow moving but highly sensual film – this is a film for feeling not thinking.

The film is visually quite stunning, despite occasional moments where the camerawork appears clumsy/overly portentous in its movement. The visual style is where the Jancsó influence comes in as the film’s characters inhabit a very formally constructed world (the framing and use of background/foreground is particularly interesting in the film) and find themselves moving almost inevitably with the machinery of war and in opposition to the fixed images of nature. In fact, there is a strong sense of paradise lost in this film.

The characters themselves barely connect with each other. Dialogue is sparse in this film, and it’s plain to see that Jayasundara is equating war with personal alienation. With his characters barely developed (and purposefully so), there is a strong suggestion of metaphor. This film may be too formal for those wanting an emotional engagement (I didn’t gather too much hope) but perhaps Jayasundara is using his style to attack what this war has meant for Sri Lanka – a forsaken paradise filled with listless, lonely, petty, cruel and uncommunicative people.—Brannavan Gnanalingam