Jude Ratnam: Demons in Paradise nominated for two awards at Cannes film festival
Jude Ratnam’s documentary on the effects of Sri Lankan ethnic war, Demons in Paradise, which was withdrawn from the Jaffna film festival had its North American premiere as part of the ‘Rendezvous with Madness’ film festival at Toronto Art Gallery on October 17.
There was a warning from a festival official before the screening began. “Our festival features some of the most difficult-to-watch films about oppression and violence in the modern world. If you find it difficult to watch this film please go out and come back later if you wish, and we also have counsellors on site willing to help if you need assistance,” he said.
Demons in Paradise is difficult to watch as it portrays a painful epoch in the country’s modern history, the effects of which are still lying heavy on us. There is no on-screen violence and the grim, disquieting mood of the past comes to life through dialogues, voice overs and decades of pain etched into human faces. Quiet sobs and sighs were faintly audible in the auditorium while episodes in recent works of fiction by Sharon Bala and Anuk Arudpragasam came to my mind.
During the Q&A session after the film a woman who had come to Canada in 1972 said she did not know people in Jaffna had to face such horrendous experiences. I am extremely sorry,” she said, as if she was conveying a collective apology, with her voice choking with emotions.
Another Tamil woman thanked the filmmaker for his impartial view of the problem and wondered why it was banned at the Jaffna film festival denying the people a chance to view one of the best documentaries made on the 30-year-old war and its aftermath.
Ratnam who was five years old when the most violent phase of the civil war began, revisits Jaffna to find what went wrong with the struggle for a Tamil homeland. He is accompanied by his uncle, a former fighter, who was protected by a Sinhala family during 1983 riots in Kandy, the heartland of Sinhala-Buddhist militancy during the British rule.
The family finds it hard to recognise him but when memories flow back there are visible tears of joy and the woman who risked her life to protect Ratnam’s uncle’s family in a predominantly Sinhala neighbourhood during the riots says, “Whatever it is my son, we are still surviving,” sobbing and embracing the man.
The film begins with Colombo riots of 1983 followed by the mass Tamil refugee exodus to Jaffna a few days later. War’s iconic photograph of a beaten, naked Tamil youth sitting in a bus stop in Borella, a suburb in Colombo, appears in the beginning. Three smiling Sinhalese young men are looking at him refreshing the memories of people in my generation who were witnesses to appalling violence the Tamils had to face just because they belonged to a different ethnic group, spoke a different language and believed in a different religion. Love for one’s ethnicity is a birthright.
Ratnam said the film took ten years to complete because it needed lot of planning. For example, two years were spent to convince the Sinhalese press photographer who took the picture of the tortured Tamil youth to agree to appear in the film. He seemed shaken and lost for words as he recounted the incident with obvious guilt on his mind for not being able to help the youth. As a photographer he had done his job, he says, while being threatened by violent mobs going on rampage and in no mood for justice.
“We had too many groups fighting for the same cause inspired by different ideologies and internecine warfare took a heavy toll on our freedom struggle”
Demons in Paradise is trying to examine why the Tamil fightback failed. Says a former fighter: “We had too many groups, about 16, fighting for the same cause inspired by different ideologies. For example, rebels of my organisation believed in a proletariat, Marxist inspired revolution. Other groups were pursuing different ideals.”
“It was too quick,” says another rebel. “We should have planned and gone according to a step by step plan without alerting the army.” Another one says “Internecine warfare took a heavy toll on our freedom struggle.” Most of the former fighters interviewed belonged to the TELO group.
Tamils had to wear disguise in Colombo with women erasing off their ‘pottus’, a symbol of their cultural affinity, and stop talking in Tamil to avoid arousing suspicion and after returning to Jaffna men discarded their trousers and dressed as village farmers, according to the film.
There was no mention of defectors like Karuna, a factor that strengthened the hands of the government, but a character indirectly referred to such incidents as ‘we lost the war also because of traitors.’
The film ends with a giant tree being felled to build a new railway. The uncle comments after seeing the damaged railway line, that it was the old train that ferried the refugees to safety of Jaffna in 1983 when they had nowhere to go in the south. The new railway is nothing more than a super luxury air-conditioned train that ferries curious local and foreign tourists to survey the war-ruined Jaffna which was out of bounds for three decades. A man and his wife who had sustained severe injuries in the war now survive in a bombed out house on money given by Sinhala tourists.
Ratnam, who speaks fluent Sinhala, said he got the permission from the ministry of defence on the pretext of shooting a love story. Talking about the banning of the film at the Jaffna Film Festival, Ratnam said it happened due to pressure by the liberal elements in the south, without going into details. According to Colombo media, the festival committee chair had insisted on the removal of the film.
Demons in Paradise has already earned its niche in the international cinema. It won the Derana TV’s Most Promising Filmmaker’s Award in Sri Lanka and was nominated for Camera d’or and Loeil d’or awards in Cannes International Film Festival in France. – newstrails.com
