Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land), the Sri Lankan film that won the prestigious Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, has apparently been withdrawn from screening in Sri Lanka (second article down).  The film opened on September 9, but was removed from Sri Lanka’s five main theaters by the National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka on September 20th.  The director and producer of the film then requested that the movie be withdrawn from the country’s remaining theaters in protest. 

While the Film Corporation claims that the film was withdrawn due to poor box office performance, the director of the film, Vimukthi Jayasundara, argues that it is a form of “unofficial censorship.”  According to the BBC Sinhala Website, the film was criticized by a senior officer of the Sri Lankan Navy:

Rear Admiral Weerasekera on September 25th in an article in the Sunday ‘Divaina’ has said that film producers should be labelled as terrorists and hanged.

The Sri Lankan media watchdog Free Media Movement additionally claims that Army officials made veiled threats against Sri Lankan filmmakers critical of the ongoing ethnic conflict:

An article published in an English language daily on 14 September 2005 indicated that films by prominent directors such as Asoka Handagama, Prasanna Vithanage, Sudath Mahaadivulwewa and Vimukthi Jayasundara have been labelled “new terrorism” and “foreign funded cinema” in statements attributed to a military spokesperson.

Articles written by military and political leaders criticizing anti-war films as propaganda for separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have started to appear in mainstream newspapers.

In a meeting between two of the filmmakers and high military officials that took place subsequent to the publication of these articles, where they were asked whether they were willing to make films for military propaganda, the filmmakers were told that if war breaks out again they will face repercussions.

According to the Bangkok newspaper The Nation, Jayasundara fled to France to avoid “possible persecution,” but will present his film later this month at the World Film Festival of Bangkok:

The theme of “Sulanga Enu Pinisa” (Forsaken Land) focuses on depression of an economical, spiritual and sexual nature. The misery expressed in the film has links to the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka, which might have disturbed the army.

“If the film has anything to do with my country’s history, it is through its conveyance of the suspended state of being simultaneously without war and without peace - in between the two. I wanted to capture this strange atmosphere,” the director said after receiving an award at the Cannes Film Festival.

For those of you who, like me, are wondering exactly what was so objectionable about the film, a rather meandering article in Sri Lanka’s Sunday Observer entitled “Solemn Thoughts by Wendell Solomons” provides a laundry list of the film’s “anti-human” images:

1. To provide affront to traditional Asian respect for elders, a grey-haired man takes a midnight bath in a river so that the script can present him to the audience with frontal nudity (no matter that Sri Lanka’s rural folk for safety, customarily bathe in rivers during daylight hours.)

2. The lead male actor ends up depicted as a buffoon duped by both his friend and a nearby army detachment.

3. A woman drawn into the film to be ravished for sensation before the audience on the low bough of a tree, is visibly with child - some 6 months pregnant.

4. A younger main actress, in her early twenties, is also ravished against a tree. Though applying a woman’s body to such a rough surface is an illogical choice, such portrayal makes for sensation both at home and abroad (it isn’t what a 15-year old youth could peek at on the Internet.) This younger main actress ends up sold to the audience as an adulteress.

5. The more elderly actress in her 30s, who commits suicide at the end of the film, is painted as a frustrated woman aroused by a male body pressing against her in a bus.

6. The tiniest person shown in the film, a girl of 8 years or so, no taller than your shoulder, provides relief to the audience until she is herself debased in front of the audience through unwittingly savouring semen below wall graffiti.

7. The nearby army detachment receives portrayal as a drunken party from which emerge cannabis-use, adultery and torture.

Ok, so the movie seems like kind of a downer, but that justify censorship, threats, and intimidation? 

Jayasundara’s next film is rumored to be a heartwarming tale of a Sri Lankan Army troop that prances around the forest on unicorns, bringing Elephant House ice cream to little boys and girls.