Director Puthiyavan as Sunderam in the film and as seen at the screening
Tamil film Otrai Panai Maram (One Single Palmyrah) lays bare harsh realities of life after the brutal 30-year-war that changed everything in the north and east in Sri Lanka. The hard-hitting movie tackling weighty social and ethnic issues is, for the most part, based on real incidents and characters.
In one scene, a torture victim, with his hands tied, is lying naked on the cement floor. An army intelligence officer approaches him and asks him to lick his boot. That moment the victim is flirting with a death wish: It is better to die rather than undergoing suffering of such torturous pain. He spits at the soldier thinking that the officer will shoot him to end his suffering. But it never happened, and it is very rare that someone can escape unharmed after causing an affront of such a magnitude against an army man.
The incident is from the real life of the film’s director Puthiyavan Rasiah. He left for England in 1986 after spending 25 months in various jails in Sri Lanka and came back to Jaffna in 2017, not with the idea of making a film, but with the intention of conducting classes for young people who did not have the luxury of even a basic education during the 30-year war.
When he was spending four months teaching English, things fell into place and Puthiyavan met many traumatized people who had harrowing stories to tell the outside world. “I had no idea of making a film during my four-month stay but when I met lot of people and listened to their stories of war and its terrible aftermath, I thought it was my duty to give them a voice.”
The result is Otrai Panam Maram, a painfully astute observational drama about the victims of war and their fight for survival in a hand-to-mouth existence, living in squalid refugee camps and abandoned houses against the backdrop of parched, barren land. He wrote the script, produced, directed and played the lead role.
A person who partly inspired the director was a former fighter of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) who was engaged in prostitution in Vavuniya to feed her two children. Her husband was a lieutenant colonel of the Tiger army who perished in the last days of the battle.
The movie closely follows three strangers who act as a family for their own safety, deciding to live in two separate houses left vacant by original owners who had left the country seeking political asylum abroad. A nosy Vellala woman who is addicted to palmyrah wine spread gossips that Sundaram and Kasturi are living together.
Sunderam has one goal in his life after the war takes heavy toll on him. He cannot remember where he buried his pregnant wife who was killed during the last days of the war. He has only a faint idea that he buried her in the shade of a palmyrah, and keeps on digging around palm trees that look familiar, looking for his wife’s body to give her a proper burial.
Kasthuri (Navaayugah Rajkumar) plays the character of a former LTTE fighter who shoots to death a colleague to ease her suffering and tries to swallow a cyanide capsule, but was prevented from taking such a desperate move at the last moment by Sunderam. Kasthuri is the daughter of Indian Tamil parents born in Kandy who settled down in Jaffna after the Up County riots in 1983.
Navaayugah’s impressive track record includes two Tamil films (Komaali Kings, Sixth Land). She also played a role in Sahodaraya Sinhala TV serial and acted in a yet-to-release Sinhala film Grivessipura. Fluent in Sinhala, Tamil and English, Navaayugah did Tamil sub titles for Ginnen Upan Seethala and Sinhala captions for the Tamil movie Koomali Kings.
Ajathika Rasiah, 17-year-old daughter of director Puthiyavan, plays to perfection the role of a teenager who had lost both her parents in the war. She is traumatized by the effects of the mayhem happening around her and is incapable of communicating with the outside world. The only thing she remembers from her past is how to play the flute.
Director Puthiyavan who was born in Kangarayam Kulam in Vavuniya joined Uma Maheswaran’s PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam). While in jail for 28 months he heard about the break-up of the PLOTE and once he was released he became disillusioned with the organisation’s questionable activities and joined its breakaway faction of Thee Pori (Spark). He had to leave the country as PLOTE was trying to assassinate him.
The gripping action sequences of the final few days of the war had been shot in South India as it was difficult to get the approval of Sri Lankan ministry of defence. “Most of the actors are amateurs and many of them are teachers. I conducted a two-week workshop for them before shooting began. Most of the characters are based on real people,” says Puthiyavan who works as a lecturer in Kingston University and earned an MA in film making at Thames Valley University in the UK.
The supporting character of a prostitute is based on the real life of a former LTTE fighter. “Before the film I wanted to meet her to learn about her plight, but she refused to meet. Later, after many attempts, she agreed to talk to me. There is also a character of a man who became rich by collecting funds for the LTTE. He flees to England and comes back to reclaim his house occupied by Kasthuri and Ajathika. When she refused, he asks her to become his mistress. When that request fell on deaf ears he seeks the help of a gang to eject them from the house by force,” says Puthiyavan.
The message the director is trying to convey is that the survivors can salvage their broken lives by grouping under civil organisations to restore their lives back to normal to demand equal rights and fight against oppression. But the question is whether the army will try to encourage such community movements.
The film was shown at 40 international film festivals, garnered 23 nominations and won 17 awards for acting and direction. Excellent cinematography is by Mahinda Abeyesinghe (Demons in Paradise, Komaali Kings).
The film will be screened in India soon. A company which has already bought the rights has allocated a huge sum for a publicity campaign in preparation for its launch.
Puthiyavan’s first film was Mann (Earth), a semi-commercial tragic romantic saga, set against the backdrop of Vavuniya in the grip of feudal land lords and communalism. The movie with a talented cast (Vagai Chandrasekar, Shana and Kaadhal Sukumar) was made in 2005 with a story spanning 20 years, ending with the emergence of the LTTE. – Somasiri Munasinghe
