A film to suit the times: mixed up, full of sound and fury, signifying next to nothing!

The film had a hodge podge of ingredients which produced a failed dish. Was it a tragedy or a comedy? That was the question. Human pathos was there in large measure and actors and actresses were stressed and wrung out with emotion and the audience kept laughing. Hence the query.

The story? Yes, what is the story? a famous actress is obsessed with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and she acts out the love story both on stage and in her private life. On stage she is successful but in real life her transference to make believe leads her to severe trouble: husband stealing, drunkenness, lunacy, sleeping pills and finally self-knifing.

There is a love triangle: Juliet, her Romeo who is a familied actor and his wife. The actress grabs the husband to be her Romeo both on stage and in reality. He succumbs to Juliet’s ploy more than to her charm which she does not have much of, but stays on with the wife who is long suffering but given to minor tantrums herself.

Love leads to trouble; anger when the husband realizes he has duties by his wife; and then follows antics in a lunatic asylum when the sane act more crazy than the inmates. The actress’ companion - a gay human puppy and Man Friday - decides to abduct her from the lunatic asylum just as the lovely lady doctor - Chandani Senevi-ratne - devices a method to cure the actress of her mental aberration. So Man Friday gaily transvesites himself to a nurse and with the chronic Cook Appu smuggles the raving actress into a Morris Minor and drives her to her mansion. She attempts suicide and her call to the lover is taken by the wife who saves her life.

Just reading that confounds you. Right? Right. That is just how the film is. At the end the young husband drinks off a flower vase in the actress’ room and falls down in a dead bit of acting. The actress ups and sees him. He has fortuitously carried a butcher’s knife to the bedroom so the actress stabs herself.

All this of course takes time, so much so that I, involuntarily though loudly, appealed to them to make an end to their dying so we could go home.

A baby girl is born to the wife and the only truism of the entire film is spelled out by her: "A girl - to suffer as all women must."

The audience does not know who really died and who survived. the wife was given a blood transfusion, mind you, while in labour. After delivery of the baby she says her famous line and closes her eyes - to die or sleep? The actress stabs herself and the actor is spreadeagled on the ground - not dead surely since he drank off an empty flower vase.

The viewer being left with questions and the choice of ending is usually good, a directional success. But the context in which the viewer is left with questions and the end to determine for himself is important. Here in Julietge Bhumikawa it is all stupid.

I mentioned many ingredients being in the film. Let me list a few: love, illicit mostly; a child; the birth of a baby; film productions and stage plays; grand country houses and sleek cars; chic clothes and period costumes; song and dance a la Hindi films; fisticuffs and sword fights; hints of homosexuality (the actress’ companion, Sapun I believe); Freud and ravings of the mentally ill; hate, revenge, suicide; Shakespeare spouted both in the original and translated to Sinhala and a bevy of pretty girls. So no wonder the film tired us immensely.

My harshest criticism is that the entire production seemed to be a vehicle for Anoja Weerasinghe to show off her histrionics. She produced the film and so she was larger than life in it; acting the part of Juliet; dancing, singing, modelling jeans and other outfits, loving, crying, angry, mad, attempting and finally committing suicide.

Kamal fitted his part - a faithless husband, also prone to living out in real life his stage/film roles. But his wife and mistress being Vasanthi Chaturani and Anoja Weerasinghe conferred on him the semblence of a lamb being led to slaughter, a toy boy married and familied; a pretty lad compromised by an evidently flesh-thirsty, ageing actress.

Jackson Anthony scripted the film. Much better was expected of him - such a talented man. Was he conscripted to provide the vehicle for Anoja?

The only sane person in the film is the doctor in the mental hospital - Chandani. It was good to see her well dressed, smart and fitting so well her film role.

Anthima Reya
A lot of bang bang and violence, but intrinsic to the story. Sinhala cinema seems to be moving closer to the American, violence being an essential ingredient if a film were targeting box office success.

Producer Lucky Dias and Director Gamini Fonseka, I am sure, were not merely targetting a box office success. they had a clear message to convey and a considered social comment to make and these they successfully did.

The comment was on the politics and underground activities prevalent in Sri lanka; the message: beware politicians or rather the manipulators of politicians.

Gamini Fonseka, Cooray in the film, is a successful businessman and ex-MP. He nurtures a man from the gutter who gets into parliament and becomes a moral person, genuinely wanting to do good by the country and his constituency. But Fonseka cannot abide this change in his protege, so he tornadoes himself against the entire world. He even incinerates his pet praying mantis. In this we see a deliberate copy of 007’s powerful and sinister adversaries, men who stroke pets while ordering most foul murders. A rather laboured imitation with a live mantis on Gamini’s pudgy fingers and sculptured versions all over the mansion.

Malini Fonseka, wife of Cooray, sees some of the murder and mayhem executed in the house and attempts leaving her husband. This untimately leads her into the protective arms or Lucky Dias and thus the tragedy. The rich man loses his all, the wife her life and the white clad MP the use of his legs.

I criticised the mantis image, but I praise the restraint with which the film deals with the love element. the director and producer could have gone to town as it were, with Lucky and Malini in bed as they hide in a planter’s bungalow. But that was not necessary so we are only shown them getting off twin beds as they hear Gamini approaching on the rampage. This proves they were not targetting a mere box office smash. The film was intended to be a serious commentary on the social evils of the day perpetrated by money and power concentrated in the hands of a megalomaniac.

Even bit parts emerge as cameos, played by well know artistes. Ananda Tissa de Alwis scores by acting to perfection the part of a retired politician turned advice-giver.

Flaws there were like too much blood, the grafted-on life motif of the mantis and Gamini being all bad and lucky, the ex-slum hunk being oh so good and often starry eyed. But his handsomeness and excellent acting carried the film. Conclusion: Anthima Reya is an effective social comment and warning. Go see it

NPW